Up until now, nobody's been pointing to the dirty little secret of this election: that while polls have shown a consistent but small lead for Obama, his eventual win was likely to be a significantly larger one because pre-election polls don't measure turnout. And there were a hell of a lot more people excited about voting for Obama than for McCain, with a particular absence of enthusiasm from the Republican base. Hannity and the rest of the talk-radio orangutans were doing their high-volume best to rally the faithful, but McCain needed a game-changer, and he might just have gotten it in Palin.

Let's get the obvious out of the way: yes, she did well last night. The bar of expectations was set pretty low, and McCain's people smartly kept her largely undercover beforehand, making her impact at the convention that much bigger. But she handled herself in front of a big crowd with great poise and rhetorical timing, with only a couple of mildly annoying recurrent facial expressions marring the overall performance. And she was essentially the Republican version of Obama - she gave an address too general to pin down as a template for policy, but one that could bring everyone in the room to their feet. Time will tell whether her understanding of the issues is as good as his, and how she will handle actual questions once out of a prepared setting, but it was a very good start for her.

The main difference I see Palin making is not the one most news people will probably be talking about. A woman for VP isn't automatically going to make a lot of women jump ship to vote for someone they had previously disliked - Geraldine Ferraro blazed that trail 24 years ago, so the novelty factor is a bit limited - so I don't see many hard-core (or even soft-core) Democrats pulling the lever for McCain as a result. She'll win over some independents, but I suspect she'll turn some off as well with her impersonation of the evil popular girl from every bad high school movie - smiling sweetly while putting a knife in the protagonist's back. Urq mentioned her as a Happy Warrior, but I think that if she doesn't moderate her tone, she'll end up coming off as more of a Dolores Umbridge type in the end. Those of you who haven't read Harry Potter will just have to look that one up.

No, what Palin can do is narrow or erase the enthusiasm gap between the parties. She actually seems to resonate with the Republican voters who have made the party go the last two decades - not a majority of voters, but potentially a plurality given the right circumstances (as we have seen in 2000 and 2004). It will be interesting to see how she handles live fire from the press and from her opponent during debates, how she fine-tunes her message and approach over the next several weeks, and how she handles scrutiny of her various odd beliefs (Iraq as the will of God?) and personal skeletons; but it appears that we now have a race on our hands.

a race? as usual Mr. Bones your instincts and evaluations are sorely way off the mark.

What you witnessed last night was no match -up making this thing into a race.

It's been a race all along...what you witnessed last night was a total slaughter of the phony, fake ,narcisstic,preening Obama and his submissive, easily fooled,worshipping, fawning, media bots.

Couple that with the populism she inspired and the razor sharp fearless and fierce manner with which she delivered her messege.... and I hate to tell you Mr. Bones..but, it's 'game over'.

But then you are always wrong..aren't you?

Roll With The Changes.

We have a race with only one side talking about the issues which seem to matter most to the voters. I didn't notice much at all in Palin's speech about the economy. Granted, maybe that's something the Republicans would rather not talk about, but when 81% in a recent NYT poll said the country was on the wrong track, and close to 50% said the economy was their biggest worry, I'm not sure if McCain and Palin can just focus on the cultural elitism of Obama and social issues like gay marriages and abortion.

Of course, there is the possibility that the economy is already on the mend with oil prices declining and the dollar rising, but I wouldn't count on that.

political event. Let's transpose things for the sake of clarification.

"Geraldine Ferraro blazed that trail 24 years ago, so the novelty factor is a bit limited." Now let's turn Geraldine Ferraro into a Black man and switch gender on the spouse as well. From the standpoint of race/issue/card play, this good natured, accomplished, and reasonably popular Black candidate was unfairly destroyed by a vindictive national press corps.

Let's move it forward and switch genders between Hillary and Barack but keep the race element the same. Here again the national press and HIS own Party officials overtly combined efforts to destroy his campaign even though he won at least half of the votes.

NOW look at the Republican Party that has dared to run . . . yes, ANOTHER Black man and INSTANTLY the national press gangs up on him seeking to destroy him.

Now HOW do you think the Black population in this nation would react to these series of events? Do you think that a fair number of them might FINALLY give the Democratic Party the middle finger and become Republicans at least for this one election?

Oh you damn well can bet on it that huge numbers of Clinton voters who are TIRED of all the national press bias against women politicians that do not adhere to THEIR [the national press'] vision of Liberal agendas ARE going to jump ship and vote for the McCain/Palin ticket.

How many? At the moment, there are worried professionals within the Democratic Party projecting that it may amount to one third of the Clinton voters. Two different ones have been saying this on national television for the last two days. One third of 18 million voters jumping ship? SIX MILLION VOTERS?! Say goodbye to Obama's chances.

... hypocrisy will, hopefully, be her downfall.

The little giggle annoyed the heck out of me, too. Not very professional.

If they're paying attention, women will see her hypocrisy for what it is. And I believe they are paying attention.

(sigh)

It's definitely on. We're looking at a cross between a 3-dimensional chess match and a door-to-door knife fight over every imaginable wafer-thin slice of every electoral demographic in America.

I still give the advantage to the Obama campaign, though, if only because McCain's campaign management is about to be torn apart by the kind of factional strife that did in Hillary Clinton. He's created one too many rival power centers.

If it's a race now then it's only a race until Palin hits the news show circuit and the VP debates. The press will eat her for lunch and quips won't save her. They will ask her to defend her national policy and I don't think she has the skill to do it.

Is this self proclaimed hockey mom really the best america has to offer? I thought you republicans were supposed to be exceptionalists.

Reach for the top.

dedicated two days of his convention to the Clintons out of the kindness of his heart? No, he did this because the Democratic Party was crippled by the nomination process and one half of the voters were not all that keen on Obama, and a great deal of that 'discontent' was due to the way in which the pro-Obama national press essentially campaigned AGAINST Hillary Clinton.

You really think that the emergency Party Unity stitching that both Clintons did for Obama [which curiously enough, Obama himself could not do on his own] is going to survive the vicious attacks of the pro-Obama press againt yet another strong political woman candidate?

Well, even if you have FAITH, enough leaders in the Democratic Party are worried about Party Unity that they are beginning to go public with it . . . again.

one word, acro..:Saddleback.

Obama can't punch his way out of a paper bag when he's in that arena.

Clearly Palin can punch through and then draw blood on her opponent.

LAMzilla,

How in god's name do you know? You haven't seen her in a debate or any kind of non-telepromptered performance on the national stage yet. Moreover, it's not like she's going to be debating Obama. The american people want to see that she knows what she is talking about when it come to national issues and my guess is that she doesn't. She may try and use attacks and platitudes as a way of covering that fact up. In fact, as a republican I'd expect that's exactly what she'll do. But I'm not sure that's going to sway independents.

re:Lamzilla.

I like it!

Being a woman and all, I have always been under the impression that women read, research, and think about their future and the future of their family, their neighbors, and all that before casting their vote.

Based on what you are saying, women are willing to vote for her "sister" just because she's her "sister".

Well, just like Palin didn't support her husband's mother in her bid to replace Sarah as mayor, most women will cast their vote in this election based on the issues. THAT, I have Faith in.

my instinct says she's there to shore up the base. it's only fitting that your veep selection appeals strongly to "values" voters because campaigning on "values" is meaningless since values aren't really governable.

she's there to win the "identity politics" battle. (neither obama, because of his skin color and education, nor biden are ever going to convince america that they're your average american.) palin, on the other hand, mirrors your run-of-the-mill american (or at least, mirrors the self-image of your average american), from her "rise" to "power" all the way down to the imperfections in her family. she's the average american woman whom hrc tried to cast herself.

(the thing about bristol that struck me is that the family's response about loving their daughter runs along the stereotypically liberal touchy-feely it-takes-a-village perspective--how conservatism has eroded over the past several decades. score one for liberalism.)

(the other thing is just a thought on how fitting it is that palin is a lifetime member of the nra. not sure you could have a shotgun wedding without nra support.)

so far as cross-over and independents go, i think she can only help wrt disaffected hrc supporters (read: "more identity politics"). it's not very interesting when it comes to pragmatic feminists who aren't likely to switch over because the kinds of policy and nominations that palin would support are likely to freeze the progress of feminism.

but there is a certain group of hrc supporters who are mildly more interesting. it could be argued that these voters are shortsighted, not really dedicated to feminism as a cause, etc. and those critiques would all be valid. at the same time though, there is possibly a case to be made that, if feminism is simply about not judging women on the basis of gender, then it's the republicans who advance feminism. again, (more?) evidence that conservatism has eroded over the past few decades.

so, not only is palin herself a neat triangulation. letting her ride shotgun frees mccain up to further triangulation with future rhetoric appealing to the middle.

the "identity politics" angle is a good strategy because she so closely parallels obama. (i.e., she makes hypocrites of both dems and reps alike, so that having established the lack of principles on the part of dems and reps, all the basis there is to vote is identity.)