Sarah Palin is a Rock Star

I said it about Obama and now I get to say it about governor Palin of Alaska.

First let's get the prelims out of the way as quickly as we can. Huckabee and Romney were first up and did yeoman jobs, both clearly auditioning for another try in 2012 or whatever. And then instead of a vid bio, we had Lisa Lingle, governor of Hawaii introducing the Palin story. She also did a good job, but was an unspectacular speaker. A video would have been better. Perhaps there was no time?

And then Giuliani. Rudy rocked the house. And the house up until that point frankly, needed some warming up. With Romney and Huckabee I thought it would be another Tuesday night, slow and yawny. But no, Rudy took awhile to get warmed up but then started laying into Obama. In a preview of what was to come Rudy started talking about Obama's experience, specifically the lack of it. As if to say, you guys want to talk about experience? Let's go. Rudy hit the community organizer, the knock against smallness, the "present" votes in the Illinois state legislature and Obama's lack of authorship of any serious bills in the US Senate.

The crowd ate it up. Rudy is good and he had them in the palm of his hand. The crowd wanted hope, the crowd wanted to fight back and Rudy gave them what they wanted... a fight. And not only a fight, but a fight on exactly the same terms as the DNC had laid out a week earlier. Experience, hope, change, who was the real reformer. Again, if McCain's plan was to go after disaffected Hillary voters, it wasn't showing here.

And then Palin, and I know, to be honest, I can't be objective about this. I can't tell you how the speech will play to Democrats or anyone who is not a Republican conservative. But I can tell you how it played to us. It was awe inspiring. Before she even started talking, the mood in the hall was electric. And her family... so nice and normal looking. I said last week that Obama fielded cuteness with his kids, a weapon McCain did not have. Well he nominated himself some cuteness and it was there tonight.

To the speech itself, All I can say is it that it far exceeded my expectations. She rocked the house. She gave a stirring line for advocacy for special needs kids. She body checked Obama more than once and smiled the entire time. She talked seriously about Iran and the need for energy, she made the case for John McCain on the basis of experience and reform, and she did it with poise.

And that's the key word I'll end with. Jay Cost called it a few days ago. Said she needed to have poise and that would make the difference. Edwards had it, Obama has it, Sarah Palin has it, Dan Quayle (God bless him) did not. All of these came on the national scene with thin resumes but were (or will be) accepted because of bearing, confidence and poise. Put Sarah in that group.

One more final note, on the idea that McCain would replace Palin. This convention and most Republicans would crucify him if he goes anywhere near that idea. She's on the ticket to stay. If the speech did nothing for you, you might see that as a good thing, I can't speak to that. But the GOP is unified around this ticket with Palin on it.

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