Swinging for the fences

The New York Times has an article by Beth Bumiller and Michael Cooper on the Sarah Palin speech at the GOP convention. Rico only caught part of it last night (it was on late, and he goes to bed early these days), but he, too, was impressed by her demeanor:

The roll-call vote made Mr. McCain, 72, the first Republican presidential candidate to share the ticket with a woman and only the second candidate from a major party to do so, after Walter F. Mondale selected Geraldine A. Ferraro as his running mate for the Democratic ticket in 1984.
But the nomination was a sideshow to the evening’s main event, the speech by the little-known Ms. Palin, who was seeking to wrest back the narrative of her life and redefine herself to the American public after a rocky start that has put Mr. McCain’s closest aides on edge. Ms. Palin’s appearance electrified a convention that has been consumed by questions of whether she was up to the job, as she launched slashing attacks on Mr. Obama’s claims of experience.
“Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown,” Ms. Palin told the delegates in a speech that sought to eviscerate Mr. Obama, as delegates waved signs that said I love hockey moms. “And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.”
As the crowd cheered its approval, Ms. Palin went on: “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.”
Ms. Palin was referring to Mr. Obama’s experience as a community organizer in Chicago before he served in the Illinois legislature and was elected to the United States Senate in 2004, as well as comments he made at a fundraiser in California about bitter rural voters who 'cling' to guns and religion.
One of her biggest lines of the night when she said “the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull” was lipstick.

Rico says he likes that line, and he likes this lady. It'll be interesting, no matter what happens in November... (But poor Track Palin is going to catch hell in Iraq for that name.)