JOHN McCAIN's vice-presidential running mate, 44-year-old Alaska governor Sarah Palin, has surprised Republicans meeting in St Paul, Minnesota, by announcing that she is soon to be a grandmother. Ms Palin, who has five children, said yesterday that her 17-year-old daughter Bristol is five months pregnant and plans to marry the unborn child's father.
"Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support," Ms Palin and her husband Todd said in a statement. "Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realise very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi's privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates."
The announcement followed rumours on liberal blogs that suggested Ms Palin's youngest son Trig was actually Bristol's. Trig was born with Down syndrome last April and Ms Palin returned to work three days later, "putting down the Blackberry and picking up the breast pump" as she governed Alaska while nursing her baby. McCain campaign officials have rejected speculation about Trig's maternity as despicable and warned Democrats that they could face a backlash if they attempted to make political capital out of yesterday's announcement.
Campaign officials said that Mr McCain knew about the pregnancy before choosing Ms Palin, an anti-abortion activist who supports birth control, as his running mate but decided it should not affect his choice.
Barack Obama said yesterday that he was offended by the suggestion by an unnamed McCain official that the Democratic presidential campaign was behind the rumours surrounding Trig's maternity. "Our people were not involved in any way in this and they will not be. And if I ever thought it was somebody in the campaign that was involved in something like that they would be fired," he said.
Mr Obama said that Bristol Palin's pregnancy was a private matter that had nothing to do with the presidential campaign and that candidates' children should be off-limits. "You know my mother had me when she was 18. And how family deals with issues and teenage children - that shouldn't be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that is off-limits," he said.