Sen. Barack Obama’s candidacy has given the race an even broader international appeal than usual. But the dynamic of McCain campaign holds their attention as well.

For the past week or so, a group of about a dozen foreign journalists — from countries as diverse as Albania, Nigeria and Kazikstan — have been following the candidates of both parties, with the help of the U.S. State Dept. Recently, they had a chance to watch Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in action in Wisconsin.

For at least one of them, Ruth Suarez, of Madrid’s Metro newspaper, it was not what she expected.

AMC: What strikes you the most about the crowds at Palin rallies?

RS: I did not expect to find African-American people here. There are not many, but there are some.

AMC: How is this different from other part of the country?

RS: This IS the “real America,” like she [Palin] says. When I came over other times, I saw New York and Massachusetts. They are more like Europe. Being here [in Pennsylvania], you feel more like it is real America, because when you meet people in New York, you cannot understand why Bush has won two elections. You meet people here, and you understand.

AMC: Are you saying that these people are more like what Europeans think of the stereotypical American?

RS: Oh, yes. For me, socialism is not so bad! In Spain, we have a socialist president!

AMC: What do you think of the enthusiasm people show these rallies?

RS: I understand enthusiasm. There’s enthusiasm in Europe. But I don’t understand why it continues right up to election day. In many countries in Europe, the day before the election, there’s no campaigning. You get a day to think.

The Secret Service was getting press credentials sorted out for journalists who joined us today. After Jill Abramson gave her name, the agent asked her what outlet sent her. “The New York Times,” said the news managing editor for the Grey Lady, a teeny tiny bit miffed. “The paper of record!” the agent responded.

Classic.

Whether or not her attacks on Obama are valid — which they’re not — is one story.

The extent to which her own claims about her “commitment to life” as governor here are accurate proves just as interesting.

There is no doubt she is an outspoken critic of abortion — against it even in incidents of rape and incest.

But Palin may have gone too far in her speech at a rally in Johnstown, Pa., this weekend.

“As governor,” Palin said at the beginning of her speech, “what I’ve been able to do is kind of manifest my commitment to life.”

While Palin ran on a pro-life platform for mayor of Wasilla in 1996, she tapped-danced around abortion when running for governor — generally bringing it up only at supportive venues.

Alaska tends to have a libertarian streak — part of it’s frontier ethos. There is an explicit right to privacy in its constitution. Abortion was legalized in Alaska before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. So abortion as an issue doesn’t galvanize a majority of voters.

That may explain why, as governor, Palin hasn’t worked to diminish access to abortion.

“In the short time that [Palin] has been the governor, she hasn’t taken any action,” Clover Simon, the head of Planned Parenthood Alaska, told me.

Simon noted that two abortion-related bills, one on parental notification and the other on late-term, or so-called “partial-birth,” abortion, failed in the state legislature. Palin did not press for a special session on the bills. Nor, according to Planned Parenthood, did she lobby for the bills’ passage.

The only policy that might be tied to Palin’s abortion views dates to her time as mayor in Wasilla, where the morning-after pill may have been the reason her police department billed rape victims for forensic exams.

News reports show that the state of Alaska stepped in and passed legislation making it illegal to charge a rape victim for evidence collection.

Rep. Eric Croft, a Democrat from Anchorage, who no longer serves in the legislature, introduced the bill after the issue came up in a local anti-sexual-assault group’s meetings.

“We kept hearing reports from our in-the-field social workers that clients were getting charged,” Croft said in a recent interview. “We had some talk about — should we get a poster child? Not only is that a shameless use of somebody, it also wasn’t necessary. We decided to just fight on the pure idea of the thing. It became less important why or how much — just shouldn’t.”

Croft noted that Wasilla pushed back throughout the six months it took to get the bill through the legislature. Even after it was signed into law, Wasilla’s police chief cited the cost of the kits as an unreasonable burden on taxpayers.

Estimates at the time were that the kits would cost about $5,000 to $14,000 a year, based on the number of reported sexual assaults in the area. Between 1995 and 2000, the Wasilla Police Dept. says that between five and 18 sexual assaults were reported each year.

“It never made sense to me that it was something worth the fight,” Croft said, “unless it was more about the fact that at the very end of the rape-kit procedure, [the victim is offered] a morning-after pill. If you really believe the hardcore pro-life position…it’s a government-funded abortion.”

Croft added, “I don’t know if for sure that that was the case.”

Palin’s campaign sent an email recently to her local paper responding to questions about her stand on requiring rape victims to pay for their kits.

“The entire notion of making a victim of a crime pay for anything is crazy,” Palin wrote. ” I do not believe, nor have I ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test.”

Palin may claim she didn’t know about the controversy — but she appointed the police chief, Charlie Fannon, who was quoted as saying that Wasilla rape victims are routinely charged for exams.

“I just don’t want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer,” Fannon told the Frontiersman in 2000.