DAYTON, Ohio -- John McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a conservative who shares his maverick streak, as his vice presidential running mate on Friday in a startling selection on the eve of the Republican National Convention.

CNN

John McCain named Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate on the eve of the RNC.

At a raucous rally in the swing state of Ohio, McCain said he made his pick after looking for a political partner “who can best help me shake up Washington and make it start working again for the people who are counting on us.”

McCain said that Palin was “exactly who I need. She’s exactly who this country needs to help us fight the same old Washington politics of me first and country second.”

Palin thus became the first woman named to a spot on a Republican ticket. “I am honored,” she said as she stood by a beaming McCain in her first few seconds in the national spotlight.

Palin is a self-styled hockey mom and political reformer who has been governor of her state less than two years.

Palin’s selection shocked numerous Republican officials.

In making his pick, Mccain passed over several more prominent prospects who had figured in speculation for months—Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge among them.

At 44, Palin is a generation younger that Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, who is Barack Obama’s running mate on the Democratic ticket.

She is three years Obama’s junior, as well—and McCain has made much in recent weeks of Obama’s relative lack of experience in foreign policy and defense matters.

Palin flew overnight to an airport in Ohio near Dayton, and even as she awaited her formal introduction, some aides said they had believed she was at home in Alaska.

She is a former mayor of Wasilla who became governor of her state in December, 2006 after ousting a governor of her own party in a primary and then dispatching a former governor in the general election.

More recently, she has come under the scrutiny of an investigation by the Republican-controlled legislature into the possibility that she ordered the dismissal of Alaska’s public safety commissioner because he would not fire her former brother-in-law as a state trooper.