In which NEWSWEEK cultural critic Jeremy McCarter reviews the final night of the Republican National Convention--and John McCain's acceptance address.

You could make an amusing game of Mad Libs out of this week's Republican National Convention. Just take a standard stump speech, and shuffle into it different combinations of the essential terms repeated endlessly over the last four days: "Ladies and [moose], I stand before you tonight not to [drill, baby, drill] but to [reform]. Because I don't [drill, baby, drill] for the [God], I [country first] the [country first] until it [troops]. Thank [maverick], and God bless [moose]." In this way you'll have much of the fun of being an actual speechwriter for the convention without any of the pressure. And it would beat listening to John McCain's speech again.

After Sarah Palin moved the crowd to fire their shotguns jubilantly in the air Wednesday night, McCain's big speech Thursday night probably would have felt like anticlimax no matter what he did. Yet even graded on a curve, McCain was capable of better than he delivered. The physical abuse he suffered in Vietnam limits his motion behind a podium, and the voice—always higher and more constrained than you expect—lacks the dynamism for Obama-esque runs up and down the scale. Those natural disadvantages seem all the more prominent when he decides to muddle through an uninspired list of policy contrasts with the Democrats—one that could have come from the mouth of any recent Republican candidate—or when he's stuck with some awkward stagecraft. The first few minutes of the speech appeared to be simulcast from the Emerald City. When the camera pulled back, the green, green backdrop turned out to be the lawn in a projected photo of some lavish house or schmancy school. Who thought this was a good idea?

McCain was stronger when he turned, near the end, to a heartfelt description of his captivity, and a closing riff in which he used a little elevated language—something that he and speechwriter Mark Salter used to much more stirring effect at the 2004 convention. Characteristically, though, he was at his best when at his most pugnacious. "I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party," he informed the party to their faces. "We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption." He wasn't merely talking about an independent streak here—he was demonstrating it. He also had a classy moment when he reached beyond pro forma praise—"He has my respect and admiration"—to say something warmer and larger-spirited about Obama. "Despite our differences, much more unites us than divides us," he said. "We are fellow Americans, an association that means more to me than any other."

In the end, though, sentiments like that make you wonder if McCain is aware of the convention that just got staged on his behalf. From night to night, you could pick out bright moments. Mike Huckabee offered one of the most evocative defenses of the party—one that was tough without being petty—when he said, "Let me make something clear tonight: I'm not a Republican because I grew up rich. I'm a Republican because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life poor, waiting for the government to rescue me." Over four days, however, the weight of the GOP's preoccupations crowded out the moments that excelled. The rainbow-hued videos began to look like special pleading from a party that remains overwhelmingly, embarrassingly white. The tributes to the military and the skillful use of patriotic icons—much more skillful than the Democrats, with their pastel-tinted stage—were undoubtedly sincere, but generally used as a force multiplier for attacks on the other party. On the evidence of these four days, the Republican vision of governance is ensuring that the lightly taxed American people are amply defended on their way to church...

John McCain has shown himself to be better than his party's baser instincts—in much the same way that Obama, by the end of last week, put daylight between his outlook and that of other Democratic leaders. So the GOP convention ultimately leaves you feeling a deep sadness, because it forecloses the kind of campaign these two extraordinary men might have waged. Forget about debating issues or competing visions of citizenship: the battlefield prepared by this convention is another culture war—more attacks on character, more personal slights, more fights about nothing.

READ THE REST HERE.
 

About the time John McCain was accepting the Republican presidential nomination last night, this photo came across the wires:

(PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

In case you haven't fully familiarized yourself with the glamor shot in the upper left-hand corner of this page, that's yours truly in the front row of the Xcel Energy Center's media workspace, second from the left. I'm flanked (from left to right) by my NEWSWEEK colleagues Adam Kushner, Holly Bailey and Carl Sullivan. We had the best press seats in the house.

Speaking of the media and seating, I just boarded the 9:18 Northwest flight from Minneapolis to New York-LaGuardia and, lo and behold, spotted Anderson Cooper and Diane Sawyer sitting in the same row up in first class. Stumper, on the other hand, has been relegated to seat 25B. Second row from the back of the aircraft. Middle seat.  

One must know one's place.

I'll be in transit for much of the rest of the day--and probably sleeping for the rest. Expect lighter-than-usual posting as a result.

Thanks so much for reading,
Andrew
 

For those of you wondering how much of what happens at these conventions is scripted, here's your answer: all of it.

She hugs them. They start to walk off.

Spotted on the teleprompter last night as Cindy McCain arrived on stage with her sons and daughters to introduce the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.

For the record, "give somewhat tedious speech" never appeared on the screen. I guess the RNC allows its speakers to improvise that part.
 

Amount raised by the John McCain campaign in the two-and-a-half days after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joined the ticket: $10 million.  

Amount raised by the Barack Obama campaign in the 24 hours after Palin delivered her speech at the 2008 Republican Convention: $10 million.

Uniting both parties' bases in one fell swoop (or, er, woman): Priceless.

Although, it must be noted: Obama's post-Palin fundraising rate ($416,666 per hour) is more than twice as fast as McCain's ($166,666 per hour). Talk about reaching across the aisle.

ST. PAUL, Minn.--Over the next 60 days, I'm curious to see whether the McCain campaign will drastically restrict press access to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin--and, if so, whether that will make any difference with voters.

I bring this up because Palin just took her first off-the-cuff question from a reporter since joining the Republican ticket last Friday. (She has spoken to People magazine about her family.) After McCain's running mate emerged from a private Republican Governors Association luncheon at a Minneapolis museum earlier this afternoon to deliver a short Obama-bashing statement, an Alaska television crew captured her attention for a brief, fleeting moment. "We feel like we're losing you a little bit," shouted the enterprising journalist. "No, I'm happy to be governor of Alaska," Palin responded. "Couldn't be more proud, of course, of my position as governor of Alaska." 

That it's. One week. Millions of dollars. Fifteen thousand reporters. And "I'm happy to be the governor of Alaska" is all we have to show for it.

This isn't necessarily the norm. If I'm not mistaken, Joe Biden did a half-dozen or so interviews during his first week on the trail; a Google News search turns up several for the past few days alone. Then again, Joe Biden probably grants interviews to everyone he encounters.

I understand that Palin spent the week prepping for last night's speech and that she's now learning to recite McCain's policy papers in a Minneapolis hotel room with his top issue advisers. But the fact is, the woman will be busy from now until Election Day. As my NEWSWEEK colleague Jonathan Alter wrote yesterday, the fear for reporters is that to "get Palin through the next three weeks" Team McCain will "dodge press conferences in favor of interviews with people like Sean Hannity, Larry King and Ellen DeGeneres. Then, when the media complain that she is being kept away, the McCain campaign will cite the half dozen or so interviews she has granted as proof that the campaign press is just bellyaching"--and as a way to further stoke the anti-MSM flames they've been fanning all week. The early signs aren't good. Biden is doing "Meet the Press" this Sunday. McCain is doing "Face the Nation." Obama is doing ABC's "This Week." And Palin is doing ... something that doesn't involve journalists and live television cameras.

If Team McCain does shield Palin from the spotlight for the remainder of the month, voters could react one of three ways. If they 1) don't notice or 2) say "good for you, Barracuda"--a likely response, given the way most members of the human race feel about the MSM--McCain wins. It's all about message control and reducing the risk of gaffes. If, however, a critical mass of swing voters starts to suspect that Palin can't handle the heat, it could reinforce the idea that her selection was a cynical political ploy and undercut McCain's "straight talk" appeal. 

Either way, it's worth noting that in times like these, the political press corps--as despised as it might be--is actually important. As I wrote earlier today, Palin's relatively skimpy C.V. means that the greatest test of her readiness for office--as it was for Obama--will be how well she performs in the presidential pressure-cooker. Obama himself said as much at a press avail today in York, Pa. "I think she has got a compelling story, but I assume that she wants to be treated the same way that guys want to be treated," he said. "I have been through this for 19 months. She has been through it, what, four days so far?" Like Alter, I believe that unless Palin is "forced to submit to real interviews with real questions"--just as Obama was--we won't have the foggiest idea whether "her real-life experience is any preparation for assuming high office."

So, yeah. Ellen is great. I dig the way she dances. But Ellen alone is not going to cut it. 
 

Stumper reader T.O.--a smart Democrat who's worked in state and national politics--kicks in a compelling outline of the reasons why Obama supporters shouldn't be stressing over Sarah Barracuda, who appears to have the entire nation (or at least, the entire punditocracy) in deep swoon mode after her performance last night here in St. Paul. I think T.O.'s note is a pretty perceptive summary of what Dems are saying to reassure themselves right now--even if it's too early to tell if any of it is, you know, true. Here's his diagnosis:

(1) McCain is running for President, not Palin. After today, it's all McCain/Obama, all the time.

(2) McCain is going to die in office. Voting for Palin for VP is voting for her for President. Probably not too many independents, who are the people she needs to win over, are going to be ready to do this. Obviously, we don't argue this directly.

(3) Loyalty oaths from Wasilla workers? Banned books in the library? Troopergate? Earmark queen? She's not a reformer. And none of this has anything to do with her wacky family, which will be off limits, but which, again, most independents still think is wacky.

(4) Independents don't like it when all you offer is attacks. Community organizing/community service is now laughable and/or objectionable? Tell that to a union worker, a woman or a black person.

(5) Back to (1). The first and last time this won't be McCain/Obama all the time before the election is Palin's debate with Biden. Here's a simple strategy for Biden: be cordial, complimentary and incredibly detailed and commanding in any policy--especially foreign policy--discussion. She'll sit there trying to remember her three bullet points on Georgia or health care reform, and the contrast will be self-evident.

What do you think? My hunch is that people don't really vote against VPs--even if the ticket-topper is unusually old. And for the record, I don't believe that many people are actively predicting McCain's imminent demise, let alone casting their ballots on that basis. Moreover, I think that the campaign will be actually be McCain-Palin vs. Obama-Obama from now until Election Day--if only because Palin's newness makes her news and the media will cover her like Paris Hilton. As the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder wrote earlier today, "Every word she says will be subject to parsing and semiotic analysis. The late night comics will be ferocious... There will be front-page stories on her accent. She'll be the top story everywhere she travels; every new market she sets foot in will be hers to own for the day. She'll draw enormous crowds...much larger crowds that John McCain. The demand for new facts and information about her will be insatiable." I suspect that Marc is exactly right--and that this exactly what the McCain camp, which is desperate to rebrand itself as "reform," wants to happen.

Additions? Subtractions? Amendments? Corrections? Anyone? Bueller?

The comments are all yours.
 

NEWSWEEK political ace (and personal Stumper favorite) Susannah Meadows takes a break from caring for her twin boys to deliver a heartfelt reaction to one of the most interesting aspects of Sarah Palin's much-discussed convention speech--the nod to her four-month-old son Trig, who was born with Down syndrome and present in the hall. Did you find the moment moving? Or calculated? The comments are open for business. Here's Susannah:

I'm not one to be moved by political speeches. Having covered John Kerry's campaign in 2004 for NEWSWEEK, and Hillary Clinton after that, cynicism is as close as I come to a belief system. My husband, an Obama supporter, won't talk to me about politics; he's been burned by too many references to "Hope Floats," the 1998 Sandra Bullock vehicle.

But I was drawn in by Sarah Palin's appearance at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night. Not because the woman knows how to give a speech--and she really, really knows how to give a speech. But that's just good theater; I found myself feeling emotional when she talked about children with special needs, and especially when the camera panned to her four-month-old Down syndrome baby sleeping in his daddy's arms. I realized I've been scanning the Palin coverage all along for mentions of her child. I've cared much more about how the baby's doing and how the family is dealing with that extraordinary challenge than the fact that her teen-age daughter got pregnant. When The New York Times ran a photo of the teen daughter holding Palin's four-month-old, I zoomed in on the little bean.

I've got my reasons. Ten months ago I gave birth, for the first time, to identical twin boys. A political reporter for NEWSWEEK, I'm now on a yearlong maternity leave. Every woman who's been pregnant has had to think about what she would do if she found out she was carrying a baby with Down syndrome. A lot of us agonize over whether to risk a miscarriage to find out with an amnio. When blood work showed that I had an elevated risk for having two children with Down syndrome (since identical twins have the same DNA, both babies would have the same condition), we went ahead with the genetic test. We put it off for weeks, second-guessing ourselves until the needle went in. The result showed that I was very lucky. I can't know for sure what I would have wanted to do had our fate been different. So I have great admiration for people like Sarah Palin.

As the camera focused on that little guy in the stands, I felt an unfamiliar stirring. Then the mom in me kicked in. What's a four-month-old, I wondered, doing out late at night in a hall filled with hoards of screamers? For all the sanctimonious applause for Palin's pledge to be an advocate for special needs-children, no one seemed bothered by the fact that the little guy was being used as a prop to motivate voters. (I hate listening to mothers judge other mothers. I'd rather just listen to my own scornful internal monologue.)

But regardless of how unpleasant the evening may have been for little Trig, his appearance was worth at least a few thousand votes in socially conservative southeastern Ohio. That's why he was there. Certainly, if McCain is elected, he will owe Palin's littlest a thank you. To think I'd gotten sucked in! Now that I'm back in my old killjoy skin, though, I find that I'm still applauding. The campaign's image-making Wednesday night took a certain political brilliance--the kind only a cynic can appreciate.

READ THE REST HERE.

(Getty Photo / Win McNamee) 
 

ST. PAUL, Minn.--One of the most entertaining aspects of "Palinsanity"--the Republican Party's long-awaited response to Obamania--is how it's forcing both conservatives and liberals to contort themselves into pretzels of irrationality to justify their feelings about the newly-minted Republican vice presidential nominee. As someone who falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, I have to say: I'm enjoying all the hypocrisy.

Let's start with the right. Last night, Sarah Palin gave a speech. It consisted of words. It was short on specifics. And it got a lot of Republicans really, really excited. "She's our Obama," a delegate from Alaska told me a few hours after Palin left the stage. The problem is that the GOP has spent many months cautioning the country against talented, fresh-faced candidates unleashing lofty but less-than-substantive language to woo worshipful crowds. Just words, they've quipped. A vapid celebrity, they've added. Never mind! As Slate's John Dickerson puts it, "catapult[ing] Sarah Palin past her rocky rollout and into legitimacy in a single speech wrapped in thunderous applause" was precisely the point of Wednesday's festivities. And while Republicans used to claim that a relatively brief, relatively unconventional resume--like, say, one that includes stints as a community organizer, a law professor, a state senator and a U.S. senator--couldn't possibly prepare someone for the presidency, now they're not so sure. Community organizer? Pshaw. Get a load of our town councilwoman.

As for liberals, they're not faring much better. After 18 months of saying that words can move the masses, they're suddenly reacting to Palin's big speech as if they were--gasp!--Republicans ripping into Obama. "Turn off the teleprompter and she'll be back to her Wasilla self," wrote commenter Jim over at the Politico, echoing the GOP's relentless "empty suit" line of attack. "With lipstick of course." And when it comes to experience--once dismissed as a narrow-minded Beltway concern; less important than intellect, biography and judgment--they're starting to sound suspiciously Republican as well. "Can you imagine this self-described hockey mom negotiating with Putin or Maliki?" wrote Stumper reader K.S. last week. "How does being a mayor of a town of 8,000 or so and then serving a two-year-stint as head of the country's smallest-populated state qualify her for these tasks?" Once upon a time, the Democrats were right about words (they matter) and experience (it isn't everything)--but now they seem to have ceded that ground to the GOP in a fit of post-Palin pique.

The problem is that both sides are viewing McCain's new running mate through the prism of their own cultural and political biases. Take the "words" argument. The reason Republicans say that Obama is "just words" is that they disagree with the words he's using. Because his positions and philosophy don't appeal to them personally, they uncharitably assume that his appeal is all about the pleasant way he's phrasing things and that his fans are being fooled. Same goes for Palin. Democrats disagree with her on tax cuts, drilling, abortion and abstinence education--so obviously she's some sort of brainless stooge who slides by on story and style and can't function without a teleprompter.

The experience debate, meanwhile, is no different. When it comes to the length and atypicality of their resumes, Palin and Obama are pretty similar: she served on the city council for four years, in the mayor's office for six and in the governor's mansion for two; he served as a community organizer for three, in the state senate for seven and in the U.S. Senate for two (before launching his full-time presidential bid). Where they differ is in what kind of experience they have--and how that experience resonates with the people already inclined to support them. Obama's resume--his years abroad, his Harvard Law Review presidency, his fluent memoirs, his Illinois legislative record--conforms to a liberal ideal of leadership: worldly, brainy, well-spoken, cooperative. Palin's resume, meanwhile--her working motherhood, her family foibles, her against-the-odds mayoralty and reform-minded governorship--conforms to a more conservative ideal: gritty, down-home, self-sufficient, executive. Obama deserves to lead because he's better than we could ever be, Democrats declaim. Palin deserves to lead because she's one of us, Republicans respond.

Each side dismisses the other's argument because it doesn't resonate with them--to Republicans, Obama is un-American, elitist, self-obsessed and politically spineless; to Democrats, Palin is undertraveled, undereducated and embarrassingly tabloid. But for either camp to claim that its candidate is the only one qualified for the White House--when neither of them crosses the traditional threshold of pre-presidential experience--is somewhat disingenuous. If an objective observer can quantify exactly why Palin's crusade against corruption in Alaska has done more or less than the sum total of Obama's legislative achievements to prepare her for the presidency, be my guest. But at the end of the day, I still suspect that experience is in the eye of the beholder.

Most Dems will undoubtedly disagree with me. For one thing, they'll say, Obama's 18 months of campaigning have proven that he's more qualified for the presidency than Palin--whatever one thinks of his C.V. "Obama won 18 million votes, faced countless tough interviews and emerged with a reputation for fluency in discussing affairs of state, whatever one thinks of his politics," writes Jonathan Alter, my colleague at NEWSWEEK. "Palin's vote totals for mayor were measured in the hundreds; she has served only 20 months as governor of a state half the size of Brooklyn, and knows nothing of national or international issues beyond energy." I completely concur. But while it's true that Obama has proven his managerial mettle in part by helming an incredibly successful campaign, Alter's analysis ignores one simple fact: Palin hasn't had the opportunity to campaign yet. Obama and Palin are running for two different offices. In a race for the presidency, you have to spend 16 months wooing voters and handling harsh questions from the press; in a race for the vice-presidency, you're plucked from relative obscurity 60 days before the election and plopped down in the middle of Ohio. When he launched his bid in January 2007, Obama was no more seasoned than Palin is now--so if his on-the-trail experience is allowed to count as a credential, Palin should at least be afforded the opportunity prove herself as well.

Sixty days, of course, isn't nearly enough time for Palin to catch up to Obama--but then again, she's not seeking the highest office in the land. So 60 days will have to suffice. Here's hoping that over the next two months America (and the media) can ditch the double standards about "words" and "experience" and start asking Palin tough questions about where she wants to take the nation. Question whether her reform resume is really what she says it is. Question her stance on abstinence education. Even question what Troopergate says about her character. In the end, Palin may sink. She may swim. But the important thing is making sure that on Nov. 4 we all have enough information to say for ourselves whether she's ready to roll.

It should be a wild ride.
 

Here's NEWSWEEK cultural critic Jeremy McCarter on Sarah Palin's speech--and why she's the Republican Obama. As usual, I'm in total agreement...

Even after all the dazzling political theater of the last year or so, Palin's speech still had the power to astound—and mainly for reasons she intended. To say she is poised doesn't do her justice. Thrown onto the national stage with little time to prepare, she looked more at home up there than almost any of the elders who preceded her to a microphone, in either party's convention. And she's not keeping things safe and sedate. Like a certain obscure state senator four years ago, she has the knack that all really gifted performers have, of working the room on the fly, of drawing people to her.

Palin's speech was most potent when most personal. Lucky for her, a great deal of it was personal. She's pretty clearly running on biography. But with a family like hers, it's hard to imagine running on anything else. She is—again, like Obama—some peculiar mix of traditional American success story and envelope-busting freak show. At 44, she's running a state. But one of her children is—oh, let's skip the biography, you watched the speech too. How will the nation deal with somebody like this, a politician who addresses the multitudes while her six-year-old licks her palm to smooth the hair of the special-needs four-month-old right offstage? Just when you thought this election might start making sense, the country finds itself back in the uncharted part of the map, where the illustrations of dragons go...

If the theatricality of Palin's speech pointed the way toward the future—after watching her and Obama, you have to wonder: are Generation X's political leaders just going to be way better at this stuff than their predecessors? —there were also times when her novelty fused with the thuddingly, depressingly familiar. Because with all due respect to whatever kid roughed up the young Barry Obama in Indonesia many years ago, he might never have been on the receiving end of a beatdown like this one. Palin last night revealed herself to be a culture warrior of the old school—a school that, alas, doesn't seem to be closed after all. From mocking his community organizing job—really? Social work is fair game now? —to taunting him about the "Styrofoam Greek columns" of his convention stage, she kept finding new and more vicious ways to abuse, and not just Obama himself: Small town folks, she said, "are always proud of America" —a not-so-subtle dig at his wife.

Now, I'm all in favor of a good political bloodletting. For the half hour or so before Palin took the stage, Giuliani did what he always does: firing off insults, making wisecracks, shamelessly spraying Rudyness all over the place. No matter how repellent you find the man or his message, it's hard not to enjoy how grotesque and delicious a show he puts on. But with Palin there's an edge that sounds new. While Obama is crafting a post-boomer politics by using his literary gift, life story, and golden tongue to bring people together, Palin, on the evidence presented so far, moves beyond boomer categories with her own original story, her own preternatural poise, and a method of political attack that is far snarkier and more up-to-the-minute than any you expect to hear coming from the mouth of someone who might very soon be the most powerful person on the planet. "What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?" she asked of Obama. (For what it's worth, this is the exact angle that snark god Jon Stewart and his correspondents have been taking while mocking him lately.)

READ THE REST HERE.
 

ST. PAUL, Minn.--Game on.

Alaska Governor and freshly-minted Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin just finished her much-anticipated acceptance speech at the Xcel Center here in St. Paul, and I can say with 100 percent certainty that the most powerful part, at least for the journalists in attendance, came about a quarter of the way in. "Here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators," she said. "I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion--I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country." I say "powerful," but mostly I mean "terrifying." That's because immediately after Palin finished the line, a large group of enraged delegates turned from the floor to the press rafters and began chanting "NBC! NBC! NBC!" They were shaking their fists, but that was only because their torches and pitchforks were confiscated at the security checkpoint. Throughout the night, one gentleman in particular kept shooting me unsettling glances, as if to say, "I know where you blog."

This is American politics at its best: wild, woolly and just a little weird.  

I imagine that if I'd had the courage to ask my malefactor to name his favorite part of Palin's speech, he would've said, "All of them"--as would any of his fellow conventioneers. In the hall, the response was rapturous. Written by former George W. Bush scribe Matthew Scully, Palin's address was perfectly calibrated to please tonight's conservative crowd--as well it should've been--and Palin herself was preternaturally poised, amazingly at ease and completely and utterly a natural. She delighted in bashing the media ("If you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone"). She reveled in the goodness of the small-town folks "who grow our food, run our factories and fight our wars." She heaped praise on John McCain's character and courage, some of it approaching poetry. "He's the kind of fellow whose name you will find on war memorials in small towns across this country, only he was among those who came home," Palin said, in one particularly well-phrased passage. "To the most powerful office on earth, he would bring the compassion that comes from having once been powerless... [and] the special confidence of those who have seen evil, and seen how evil is overcome."

And perhaps most memorably, she ripped into Barack Obama with reams and reams of ridicule. Following warm-up act Rudy Giuliani--who resembled in his delightfully relentless (and partially improvised) roasting of Obama nothing so much as a Republican Don Rickles--Palin pleasantly but methodically mocked every aspect of her rival's appeal, slicing into his experience and ego with a sharpened stiletto and a smile. "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,'" she said, in one of the most popular lines of the night, "except that you have actual responsibilities." Zing. Thrown some red meat, the Republican Party ate it up. As political performances go--tone, tenor, timing and material--Palin was pitch-perfect.

That said, the GOP was ready to fall in love. The more interesting reactions will come from the press, and, by extension, the rest of America. I guarantee that the reviews will be positive, and rightfully so. For much of the week, the media has obsessed over Palin's complicated (and largely irrelevant) personal life, from her DUI husband to her pregnant teenage daughter. In the absence of any additional appearances--she's spent the five days since joining the ticket ensconced in a Minneapolis hotel room--the pundits and prognosticators simply had nothing else to talk about.

Now they can obsess over her performance. Fixated on process, they'll marvel at how smoothly she plays the attack dog, allowing McCain--in whose mouth the same lines would sound cantankerous and cranky--to float above the fray. They'll note that Palin's smiling attacks are particularly dangerous to Dems because they're aimed at women and middle-class voters who see themselves in her. They'll analyze the sexual subtext of the new McCain-Palin ticket, claiming that middle-American men will be drawn to an attractive "gal" (Palin) who "stands up for her man" (McCain). They'll explain the lack of "policy details" in Palin's speech by saying that her focus on biography and character is the best way for the GOP to appeal to independents--a group that votes for people first and issues second (and would recoil from her hard-right record). And they'll celebrate how, as a woman and a "reformer," she helps McCain compete with Obama for the mantle of "change." Of course, none of this stuff--all of which I've distilled from real conversations with reporters here in the hall--would've surprised anyone remotely familiar with Palin's spunky charisma. But before tonight, most MSMers weren't. As a result, the chatterati set the bar very low--and they'll give Palin a lot of credit for clearing it (which she did with room to spare).

Ultimately, however, I suspect that the shelf life of tonight's speech will be brief. It was short on specifics substance-free. It was largely negative--and while sarcasm works in the moment, it tends to curdle as time goes by. And many of its assaults on Obama's record were misleading. That said, none of these complaints will affect the all-important narrative. Before tonight, Sarah Palin was a cipher to most Americans--more a collage of talking points, headlines, biographical details, rumors, speculation and opposition research than a real person. But now voters know something about her, firsthand: that she confronted her opponents head-on--even if the opposition was in part a "sexist" press corps that exists only in the fevered minds of McCain's strategists--and triumphed, as it were, over adversity. For them, clearing that bar is a credential of its own.

Tomorrow, the Palin storyline will shift from "Who is this person?" to "Wow, she was pretty good"--and after a week under siege, that should come as a relief to McCain and Co. Still, it's now up to Palin to prove that she can handle the crucial questions--on inexperience, on Troopergate, on whether her reform record is really what she says it is. And she'll have to do it without a teleprompter.
 

By Karen Breslau 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska--Here at the Peanut Farm restaurant in Anchorage they are eating up Sarah Palin's words with more gusto than the huge steaks they sling.

When they cut away to a shot of little Piper, Palin's six year old, stroking the head of her napping baby brother Trig, people here laughed so hard, the guy at the bar next to me wheezed in his burrito and started crying. That's when Palin was talking about the political power of PTA presidents.

The crowd here at the bar, including her sister Heather, who is in the custody of a CNN crew, are riveted. When she makes a crack about the only difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom being lipstick (same joke she told me a year ago) some women at the bar nodded in agreement. "It's the truth!" another howled. 

Having spent much time covering Palin over the past year, she seemed like the longest of long shots. Tonight, though, she's all pitch-perfect timing and delivery. A populist star is born.

UPDATE, 11:13 p.m.: The Peanut Farm has erupted with shouts of "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah!!!" as Palin raises her arms in triumph and her family fills the stage. They're gonna be talking about this one for a long time here. The rapture over Palin, with McCain standing awkwardly by, reminds me of the first time Prince Charles took Lady Di for a walkabout.

UPDATE, 11:16 p.m.: Here at the Peanut Farm my fellow diners are putting their hands over their hearts and singing along with the National Anthem.

Spotted: actor Joe Pantoliano of Sopranos fame attempting to get down on the floor of the 2008 Republican convention. This is Stumper's first celebrity sighting here in St. Paul, so I have to say, I was impressed. Apparently, the authorities didn't agree: Joey Pants was turned away at the gate.

No word yet on whether he plans to resurface during a dream sequence later in the convention.

ST. PAUL, Minn--Former Massachusetts governor and alleged human lifeform Mitt Romney just finished his remarks here at the 2008 Republican Convention and, boy, was he excited.

I'm told that CNN, MSNBC and FOX News didn't broadcast the governor's speech in its entirety. That's too bad, because excitement like Romney's deserve to be enjoyed by the broadest possible audience--not just the people who are crazy enough to attend a political convention or watch one on C-SPAN. That's why I've decided to share the essence of Romney's address with you, the people who are crazy enough to read about a political convention on a NEWSWEEK political blog.

As I said earlier, Romney was excited. I know this not because Mitt spent his first few minutes on stage shouting that all the stuff controlled by Republicans since the year 2000--the Supreme Court, the government, the Congress, the spending--is liberal. "We need change all right," he said. "Change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington!" Nor do I know that Romney was excited simply because he stuffed his speech with language vigorous enough to earn him an A-minus in ninth-grade creative writing. "It's time to look for the sun in the west, 'cause it's about to rise and shine from Arizona and Alaska!" "China is acting like Adam Smith on steroids!" "Mortgage money was handed out like candy!" "[We must] tak[e] a weed-whacker to excessive regulation and mandates!" "[We must] stand up to the Tyrannosaurus appetite of government unions!" I could go on.

No, I know that Romney was excited mostly because there were lots and lots of exclamation points in his prepared remarks. In fact, of Mitt's 61 sentences, a full 17 ended in exclamation points. That's 28 percent! By comparison, zero of Mike Huckabee's 90 sentences ended in exclamation points. Here in the hall, I couldn't help but think that this was a good thing. As Romney veered from liberals to Adam Smith to weed-whackers to Tyrannosauruses and then back to liberals again, his face flush, his voice straining, I watched each of his 17 exclamation points scroll by on the teleprompter and thought: thank goodness. I mean, how else would Romney's neural net processor know that the time had come to simulate human excitement?