Centerfield

Frankly, I was not inspired by the pick, but I'm going to listen to the speech tonight with an open mind. But I should note that the feeding frenzy going on creates a strong possibility of a backlash, particularly among women, and particularly given Obama's relative experience level. The Democrats should not overplay this hand.

Nixon's checker's speech. Without its success he would have been dead in teh water for years.

I will predict that Palin will give a good solid speech sprinkled with enough foriegn policy material to comfort people, nevermind the fact that she has a lot of catch up to get on par with either Biden or Obama who's been in the Foreign relations committee in the Senate.

Oh, she'll stay away from abortion, maybe a slight passing mention. They don't want to scare away too many people.

A couple of notes.
This has to be the whitest RNC in decades. I'm thinking of tossing the quadrennial "spot the minority drinking game". Maybe they'll bus in some people on Thursday.
I saw a big sign that said Democrat(s for McCain) Not a single sign that said in GIANT letters "Republican". Maybe it's the POV camera but
from a sales view point, if you are that ashamed of your brand why are you even in business?

Where's Dick Cheney?

The NPR floor guy was remarking on how everyone had a classic GOP campaign button for everyone except W.

Nixon's Checkers speech was more important for getting the nomination for VP. Without it, someone else would have been nominated - he had to do something positive to improve his chances. Palin, on the other hand, will get the nomination unless she does something very negative to trash her chances.

On the other hand, once nominated, Nixon was set. It was clear to everybody (including Stevenson) that Eisenhower was going to coast to victory. As he did. This year, it's a very different story. McCain needs Palin to actively boost his numbers; just not being a negative won't be enough. So her speech is more critical than Nixon's was to winning in November.

I think the latter will be very hard to do. The Democratic base is very strong this time around.
Right now all Palin is doing is firming up the GOP base and seducing an increasingly wary Christian right to stay hooked up to the GOP IV a little longer. Beyond that she'll have some independent appeal but won't make more difference than Bob Barr's candidacy. That's probably where the bulk of any vote siphoning may come from. You're not going to get much from more liberal independents.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis told Washington Post editors Tuesday that issues will have an impact on undecided voters but will not be conclusive.

“This election is not about issues,” Davis said. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.”

All Obama has to do is ram the issues down the GOP's throat every single day and maybe every single hour and he's president.

My occasional CSPAN checking and speechwatching tonight reminded of '96 and our '04 conventions. There a strong bit of bitterness, a lot of sketchy articulation, and amazingly little confidence in the candidate.

Todd, I think there's alot to what you say, I've seen the results in Megan McCardle. No, the tack we should be following more (and I've been working on some), is go with the issues.

After all, like Marcus said, we have huge advantage there, and Palin's IMHO doubled the opportunity with independents and centrists. Abortion extremism, creationism, and censoring public libraries (yeah, really! Google it yourself, or wait for my post) are hardly popular issues, even among rightie centrists. With luck, we could get lots of them to stay home. That. presumably, is why Palin was told to keep her mouth shut on her extreme issues.

(drunkblogging) (no, it was 40 min of being cried at at bedtime, not Palin). But I felt the delegates needed drinks much than I did. I keep feeling sympathetic, remembering our '04.

Oh, and I knew Truman, and she's no Truman.

Seriously, Truman was about honesty, and there was virtually no truth in Palin's speech. And, when Truman was put on-ticket, he'd just conducted maybe the most impressive Congressional committee ever, hearings that brought out on the carpet alot of war corruption. NO Republican has been honest enough to do that in this war (sigh), much less Palin. Palin could never do anything like that, because she cares about faith more than facts.

Are you doing the let them cry themselves to sleep thing?

Wait till the kid's 15, the it's they DON'T want to get to sleep

Palin:
The GOP tried to play chicken with her as the front bumper but they veered off instead. No mention of abortion, gay marriage, I don't even think she mentioned guns. Like I said before, what does it say about the Republican brand when they are running, no, sprinting away from it.

She didn't have to mention it because the base knows where she is at. That's the advantage Palin gives McCain. He no longer has to worry about the base so he can go back to pretending to be a maverick and woo the independents by raising doubts about Obama. He will make some token attacks on Big Oil and talk about health care and blah, blah, blah.

It's a terrible selection in terms of the fact that Palin could conceivably become president of the US. But it makes sense politically but only if McCain can convince enough people that she is qualified to potentially be president.

Any respect I once had for McCain has pretty much gone out the window with this.

The Obama speech, of course, wasn't exempt from politicians' exxagerations and spin, pretty much wrongly when he promised oil independence (only high gas prices can get us there, though Obama'd make much more progress). BUT. To me, the McCain speech was all pretty much painfully weak spin and even lies except the bits about his torture and about Petraeus (though I still'd like to've seen something about WHY the Surge was needed).

I like best his '00 speeches, when he still cared and had a real reform issue to work with. This hardly seems like the same man.

McCain's speech was horrible. I eventually turned it off and took the dog for a walk. It seems like he is not even really trying.

He probably wasn't. One commentator made the point that McCain isn't a good speaker and that speeches are not a strong point as they are for Obama. He just wanted to get through it without screwing up too badly.