Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has an uphill battle ahead as he strives to convince skeptical Americans he is just like them: A guy with an exotic biography, perhaps, but also someone with ordinary all-American working-class family roots on both his mother's side and on his wife's side.

That was a central theme in the choreographed four days of events that made up the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Tomorrow, the Republicans open their convention in St. Paul with their own biographical challenge. John McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was the kind of high-risk decision a former fighter pilot might be expected to make. If Obama's biography is too unusual, then Palin's might be considered too ordinary.

Except for the fact that she is from Alaska, which is as far off the radar of most Americans as is Hawaii, Palin is as all-American and mainstream as a person can get.

A self-proclaimed hockey mom (Alaska's version of the famed soccer mom), Palin's roots are small-town classic: The PTA, the local council, then through a series of events, into the governorship.

Count on that very normal ordinariness to be emphasized during the Republican's four days in the national limelight. It is quite a contrast to Obama, who despite the spin that emerged from the convention has little in his background that most average Americans can identify with.

Obama, who has to overcome his "otherness," chose as his running mate a classic Washington insider and veteran, U.S. Sen. Joe Biden.

McCain, whose Washington credentials are deep-set and respected, went the other way and chose a mom from Middle America (not geographically, of course, but symbolically) as his teammate.

Some may see McCain's selection of Palin to be a kind of Hail Mary pass, a desperate long-shot effort to change the game. But the GOP convention will portray the selection of Palin as precisely the right thing to do. Her very ordinariness and record of fighting what she called "the good old boys" of politics-as-usual will be presented as her greatest strength.

Hawaii may be momentarily intrigued that McCain chose as his vice-presidential running mate someone with a background very much like that of our own governor, Linda Lingle: A reformist, non-traditional Republican from a remote, non-contiguous state.

Lingle, who says she was clear from the start she did not even want to be considered for the job, in any event lacks Palin's credentials as a staunch, anti-abortion, family values conservative — just the ticket for firming up the conservative base of the GOP.

Now, it must be acknowledged that the choice of a vice-presidential candidate, whether it is insider Biden or outsider Palin, matters relatively little in the long run. Most people vote for the presidential candidate, not the ticket.

Nor does any of this matter that much in the fight for Hawaii's four electoral votes. Most commentators and analysts put Hawaii firmly in the Democratic column this November — a product of our long Democratic tradition and the fact that Obama is a native son.

Democrats here aren't treating Hawaii as a sure thing, by any stretch. They will campaign vigorously and hope to bring out a high-profile surrogate for Obama some time before the campaign is over, ideally someone with the last name Clinton.

But in the meantime, the focus of the Hawaii Obama team is on our "fifth county," Nevada, where expatriate Islanders make up a significant chunk of the population in and around Las Vegas. That's where folks like U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Akaka and Mayor Mufi Hannemann will go next.

Jerry Burris' column appears Wednesdays in this space. See his blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com/akamaipolitics. Reach him at jrryburris@yahoo.com.