Palin Power

Count me as among the very impressed with Sarah Palin's speech last night at the GOP convention. She came across as smart, biting, sarcastic, well-spoken, offensive, prepared, and incredibly poised. Already folks are thinking: why not flip the ticket :-) Seriously, she offered some wonderful lines. Among them:

• I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening.

  We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.

• This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word "victory" except when he's talking about his own campaign. But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed ... when the roar of the crowd fades away ... when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot - what exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?
• There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you ... in places where winning means survival and defeat means death.

• For a season, a gifted speaker can inspire with his words. For a lifetime, John McCain has inspired with his deeds.