Palin can't touch Hillary with a ten-foot pole, but honestly, I didn't feel Obama could either.  I do not take anything that Chris Matthews says seriously because I don't know if his leg is tingling or not.

B. McCain chose Palin in part to try to appeal to disaffected Hillary voters.

There's a reason Rove et. al. always refocus the attention on other kinds of issues: because they lose when the focus is on kitchen table issues (except, again, for lowering taxes).

I'm curious to see what she does on the campaign trail.  Do they pivot her to a more positive outreach?  I totally agree with BTD that that was missing.  But maybe the McCain camp thinks base maintenance is his most important need.  We'll see if that works for him.  I suspect he needs more.

Last night's polling shows that, by a ten-to-one margin, voters believe reporters are trying to hurt Palin's campaign rather than help. Republicans and unaffiliated voters strongly believe that a double standard is being applied to Palin because she is a woman. Democrats disagree. Perhaps most stunning is that, among unaffiliated voters, just 42% believe Obama has better experience than Palin to be President. Thirty-seven percent (37%) say Palin has the edge on experience. Again, most of the interviews for this survey were completed before Palin's well-received speech last night.

One guy called in to say, sounding as if he were speaking with a straight face, that he talking about Obama as a "community organizer" was a dog whistle to the Repub base to make clear he was 1) black (bcz only minority communities need organizers), 2) a Communist (bcz communists plan communities..huh?), plus, 3) communities are only in big cities and we all know that big cities are where minorities and communists are (!!!!!).

So, all along, per this caller, Obama has been telling us that he was both a black and a communist when he mentioned his role as community organizer. I did not know that.

Now, this caller was not a McCain or Palin supporter; he seemed to be speaking as an Obama supporter. But, my oh my, people do come up with some pretty stretched takes on other people's words!

A woman guest, btw, never saw any sexism in anything the media said about Hillary and the only sexism shown toward Palin was questioning whether she could be a mother of five and VP. The media people just cannot figure out why there's any thinking there's sexism.

A woman caller said at least on the Repub ticket the lesser experienced person was the VP, not the presidential candidate.

To BTD's point her expactations where so rediculously low because the liberal blogoshpere and media assumed she must be a dummy but no objective person can say she didn't deliver her points very well.

Jeralyn's point of a preprepared speech seems silly when all pols do that but I digress.

She is a good politician.  In the coming days we will find out if she is good on the stump (I assume she is) and good with the press (I assume she is) and good in a debate ( I assume she is).  

I hear you point BTD but I think ultimately she isn't going to convince you so who is she talking to?  Obviously the base which went great.  I also think she's talking to independents and in my view she laid out quite simply her agenda.

More energy from all sources.
Lower taxes
Cutting goverment spending through negotiation or threat of veto.
Strong defense

To me and millions of conservatives that is exactly what I wanted to hear.  She has energized me in a way I used to be excited about Bill Clinton when I was a college freshman.   It can't be understated how great a pic this is to mobilize the republican base.

and the Democratic women.....some are still so angry......

Obama really screwed up by not picking Hillary,

and the DNC said not a word in her defense.

It's just that last night made them realize their tactic to diminish her and her family is probably not going to work and may very well backfire in their faces.  So Biden is out talking about right-wing sexism this morning (why would the right-wing who loves Sarah Palin and wants her on the ticket attack her with sexism?).  

But they lost an important week to talk about exactly how wrong about everything Sarah Palin is and to frame her speech last night in those terms.  

And then Sarah Palin misses the "direction of the country" opportunity as well*.

She really is a barracuda (those 80% approval ratings don't come from nowhere) and the Ds need to get a sense of reality about her rapidly:

1. Great life story as a hockey Mom to put beside Obama's life story.

2. Undercuts the experience argument totally. "Being mayor is like being a community organizer [deadly pause] except with actual responsibilities." True or not, lots of people will believe this.

3. If she's quick on her feet in debate, she could take Biden out. The press would love that story.

In a lot of ways, this all seems familiar to me from the primaries. Same style of attack ("missed opportunities") by the Obama forces, but without control of party machinery -- a national election is not like Chicago -- the attacks seem to flail.

Honestly, we've been talking about nothing but Palin for what? Five days? That can't be counted as anything other than a win for McCain.

 'being a small town mayor was sort of like being a community organizer, but with actual responsibilities'.  

It really pointed out to me that the only concrete thing Obama actually has done is talk and write.

It's embarrassing that the Dems have chosen such a weak candidate, and that statement highlighted that fact.

Her politics and mine are very different on some issues, but she is a strong woman who is capable and articulate.

It may be touchy-feely but touchy-feely doesn't balance a budget.  

From the beginning of this debacle I have been flabbergasted that anyone would have accepted this as a qualification.

What's really amazed me is that so many people equate the way their candidate makes them feel about him with rational analysis of his strengths and limitations and background.

We can disagree with Palin's opinions on choice and limits to choice, but we should not delude ourselves.  Her opinions are those of a huge slice of America.

The alpha males who top our ticket mumble about supporting women's rights.  Supporting.  As in allowing, permitting.  

I'm not an expert, but it seems to me, having taken a good look at some very angry feminist writing back when I was younger, that the foremost objective of feminism was achieving political and personal power.  

Well folks, Sarah Palin has grabbed power, and she grabbed it away from the good old boys.

The only thing we apparently have in common is a uterus. Other than that, she gave me no reason to change my initial impression about her.

You don't handle a pitbull with kid gloves. If Obama/Biden make that mistake, they will get bit.

She doesn't have the credibility to be so nasty.  I read an article from the Detroit Free Press and all of the independents were not happy with her. The only folks that like her were Republicans.

I think sound bytes and angry sarcastic rhetoric written by someone else and delivered eloquently are not indicative of anything other than the ability to deliver a good speech.  She has 4 weeks to prepare for a debate and memorize answers to a number of pressing issues.  I predict that she will not be up to doing so.  Based on that speech and that speech alone I find it hard to believe that you can surmise that she is formidable.  Let's see how book banning, creationism and lack of achievement play out in the media and the weeks to come.

Do you have any predictions on the economy and the next 3 months?  I am on record on this site predicting the recession, predicting the job cuts and predicting the credit/housing crisis prior to it happening.  The next two months economically speaking will be bloody awful.  How will that sit with middle americans who are well past 9-11 and care about saving their homes and getting out of debt?  I will tell you how.  It will be with rejection of the petty attack platform launched by the right and a demand for red meat that feeds the children not the kind of red meat of petty politics.....

Here is where I think exactly as you do Armando, having been at one time an HRC admirer: she will stand on principles and will throw it right back.

But I agree she/they missed the opportunity as well. She should have spent at least 5 minutes talking about how McCain-Palin policies would help the middle class. There didn't have to be a lot of detail. Biden's now jumping into that void.

Your point that Hillary Clinton did include the working class in her campaign as she went along is a great one.

BTW:

According to HuffPost, two Focus groups of women were appalled by Palin/Tina Fey's nastiness.

I kept waiting for her to introduce Gilbert Gottfried, because after Rudy's put down of American Opportunity (Only in America, he said of Obama, and the crowd laughed as though he were saying Bob Saget had sex with the Olson Twins), it was clear that this convention is:

Perhaps she might have peppered the speech with some of the Republican style populism that Huckabee uses, but there are pitfalls in going down that road.

And think some of that was subtextually there in her manner, biography and delivery.

But I agree there's always been a big opening for Democrats on the issue of jobs and the economy, and fighting for the little guy.  And if they hit hard on those issues, they will probably be able to blunt any momentum that Palin has given McCain.

The truth is, both campaigns (McCain's and Obama's) are too reactive, too biography centric, too lacking in actually NEW ideas, too unconnected to the current challenges of ordinary people, and totally lacking in genuine vision.

Instead she gave a sort of Republican version of Ann Richards' 1988 Democratic Convention keynote speech.

And the problem with this is ...?

But I think you're a bit optimistic in dismissing the way she addressed the issues of working class voters.

She's actually living those issues, something that can't be said about any of the other candidates.