Until Wednesday night, many political professionals were whispering that there was a good chance that in picking Sarah Palin as his running mate John McCain had lost the election.
And some of them thought that with his last-minute, seemingly impulsive selection of a little-known and little-experienced governor he had lost his mind.
It’s as true on Thursday afternoon as it was on Wednesday that Palin is a risky pick. The public — and no doubt the McCain campaign as well — still doesn’t know what it doesn’t know about Palin, whose personal and public record in Alaska is still being raked by reporters and opposition researchers.
But in the space of one 36-minute speech by Palin, McCain proved that his choice was not a lapse into temporary (or even permanent) insanity. The speech’s political significance goes far beyond the fact that Palin showed herself capable of delivering a spirited reading of words that other people wrote.
Just as Barack Obama’s 2004 convention speech transformed his career, Palin’s speech has the potential to transform the dynamic of this race — in some ways that are obvious and some not….
Politico
9/4/8
Magnolia Tribune
