One summer evening, I saw B.B. King play a concert on an outdoor stage.

It was the end of a hot day. Thousands of people had waited through lesser acts. The night sky spread out overhead, nothing to hold in the attention.

When the time came, an elderly man came into the lights with a guitar named Lucille. He would perform in a chair.

And he owned the place. To the very last row.

Some people just have that.

If most ordinary souls make up the crowd, a select few can't help being apart from it. They draw eyes, capture an audience.

In a music conservatory somewhere, a guitar professor owns a greater technical proficiency in fretwork. Maybe a thousand professors in a thousand schools.

Doesn't matter. They don't have the allure of a bluesman from Memphis.

OK, you argue, B.B. King paid dues to earn his appeal. No doubt. But explain then the personal magnetism of Sarah Palin.

Under a pyramid in suburban Kansas City, Ms. Palin campaigned for the vice presidency in early September last year. Less than two weeks before, presidential nominee John McCain, alongside this day, had picked her as his running mate.

They said the expected things about "draining the swamp in Washington" and acting like "mavericks."

Mr. McCain had served his nation in war and for decades Congress. But the people inside this pyramid, many of whom hadn't heard of Ms. Palin as August arrived, chanted with gusto, "Sarah, Sarah."

Maybe it was her words. Maybe it was wishful thinking. A thousand politicians in a thousand venues might have known more about the issues than she did. But she seemed that suburban morning to have that certain abstract quality, not of the crowd but apart from it.

Ms. Palin's book comes out today, a best-seller from its conception. For the last week, bits of it have been shrewdly drizzled over the nation, building the buzz.

It is called "Going Rogue," a phrase that served as an intra-party accusation and a reputation she wants to cultivate.

In a country that barely stomachs the doings of Washington, roguish behavior that smirks at capital insiders gets a decent reception.

Applied locally, a roguish comparative might be the 2006 municipal elections when St. Joseph voters put in office a new mayor and six new City Council members.

Let no one argue the power of incumbency at 1100 Frederick Ave. That April, the ballot choices might easily have read "Newcomer" and "Thanks For Your Service."

Fine. In a democracy, people decide.

The old saying goes that you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. For the three and a half years, city governance has been an exercise not in meter and rhyme but mayhem and passing time.

A long spell passed when the council required play-nice lessons. Invective lessened with time, though the squabble between the mayor and city manager always simmers a few degrees below the boiling point.

In truth, friction can accomplish goals where harmony sometimes can't. Pressure creates diamonds in the right circumstances. It also creates migraines.

People line up now to seek city positions in 2010. Voters will decide if the outsiders who became insiders accomplished much, if they governed a city.

Even going rogue, a leader is measured on the scale of success and failure.

Ken Newton's column runs on Tuesdays and Sundays.