One year ago Saturday, Republican presidential hopeful John McCain hoisted little-known Sarah Palin onto the national stage. Little could McCain imagine the cast of characters she would bring with her or the firestorm she would create.

Isn't it odd how nuclear explosions alter the time-space continuum? Thirteen months ago, much of Alaska knew Sarah Palin almost as much by her marriage to "first dude" Todd Palin, the Tesoro Iron Dog snowmachine racing champion, as by her political office, and the world -- well, the world didn't know her at all.

Now the world knows not only Sarah but Todd and many of the rest of the players in what has become the Palin Family Soap Opera: Bristol, the teenage daughter who has become a national spokeswoman for teen abstinence. Levi Johnston, Bristol's ex-fiance and the daddy of the baby she had because she couldn't abstain. Sherri Johnston, the mother of Levi, and a convicted drug dealer. Meghan Stapleton, the former television talking head who became the bark-at-the-media attack dog for Sarah, who was in turn the attack dog for Republican presidential contender John McCain.

And those are only the main players. Throw in the bit players -- people like Palin's Fox News buddy Greta Van Susteren; Levi's handler, Tank Jones, and flamboyant attorney, Rex Butler; the gaggle of photogenic Palin children; Sarah's plain-spoken father, Chuck Heath; even comedian Kathy Griffin, who dragged Levi along as her date to Nickelodeon's Teen Choice Awards in August -- and the show really gets weird.

A small-town girl from the sticks hits the big time

Welcome to the strange new world of Sarah Palin, one-time Alaska beauty queen, one-time stay-at-home mom, and one-time mayor of the strip-mall town of Wasilla along the picturesque shores of Lakes Wasilla and Lucille in the shadow of the spectacular Talkeetna and Chugach mountains, below which dwell many hardworking people and a handful of the not-so-hard-working whom former state Sen. Ben Stevens once impolitely referred to as "Valley trash."

The setting here is awesome, the cast of characters intriguing, and the spectacle sometimes hard not to watch.

At least until it gets just plain overwhelming.

Maybe by now you've had enough. Even one popular Alaska radio talk-show host was on the air in Anchorage only days ago expressing relief that with Palin gone from the governor's office and comparatively silent on Twitter and Facebook, there have actually been a few days of quiet since she threw the "death panel" fireball at President Obama's plan for national health care. The Obama administration, of course, is still trying to calm the "death panel" storm Palin created by posting just a few lines of copy on the Web.

And to think that prior to Aug. 29, 2008, Palin was -- at least on the national level -- an obscure, Republican governor in a far-off state serving as something of the de facto leader of a pack of Democrats in the state House.

That was then, when Sarah Palin was a uniter, not a divider.

This is now, with Sarah Palin one of the most visible Republicans on the national stage and arguably the most divisive figure in American politics. An ABC News/Washington Post poll in July found 70 percent of Republicans hold a favorable view of Alaska's ex-governor, but among all voters -- Republicans, Democrats and independents -- 58 percent view her unfavorably.

She is quite simply the most popular Republican in the country at the moment, and the Republican least likely capable of bringing Democrats and independents into the conservative fold. It's a long way from those halcyon days of yesteryear when she was cozier with some Alaska Dems than with her own party leadership.