Sarah Palin, where have you been all my life?

Or, at least, where have you been for the past two years? And why haven't you been running for PotUS?

I get it now, Obama supporters. I understand. All this time I've been talking about how creepy it is that you've been swooning over your guy. But then I finally found time to sit down with the Tivo ... and I saw this:

... and now I totally get it.

When you find a politician who seems to represent your values and your priorities, and when that politician is attractive, charming, smart, funny ... when that politician delivers a speech and you feel like you've just seen a rock concert ... man, that's friggin' awesome.

Not a week ago I was wondering who the hell Sarah Palin is ... and now I'm ready to sign up to join her fan club. Obama supporters think they've found the new JFK ... and here I sit wondering if Sarah Palin might be the next Reagan.

I'm trying to remain objective, skeptical, etc. But, man, what a speech.

Some of the reaction:

• Hugh Hewitt: The contest has changed. Her character and candor have changed it, and John McCain's judgment is vindicated.



• Ted Nugent, who knows a thing or two about rockstars: With grave suspicion and reservations, I nonetheless rejoice that the fading embers of conservatism may have indeed caught fire once more ... Now I know why I have seen no one with any guts in the Republican Party in so long: the governor of Alaska has them all.



• Rich Lowry: She may have given the best speech of either political convention. She delivered a brilliantly written text flawlessly. Politicians who've been on the national stage for decades could do no better, and usually do worse.
  
  Miss Congeniality isn't afraid to administer an old-fashioned beat-down. Annie Oakley brought a gun to a knife fight and made like the Obama-Biden ticket was a moose lazily meandering into her gun sights.
  
  She was merciless on Obama's elitism, scoring him for saying one thing about working-class voters in Scranton and another in San Francisco. By the end, you began to feel sorry for him for having been so thoroughly eviscerated by a woman and to wonder - how are Obama and Biden possibly going to handle her?



• Michael Barone: Sarah Palin's speech to the Republican National Convention last night was a home run. A star was born. While the Obama campaign has attempted to disparage it by saying that it was written by a former George W. Bush speechwriter, Matthew Scully—and thus link it to the McCain=Bush meme that was one of the chief ideas thrust forward in their convention in Denver last week—it cannot be dismissed as such. Scully reportedly had written a generic draft that could have been used by whichever vice presidential candidate McCain had chosen. But once Palin was the choice, she and Scully reportedly worked together and produced a draft that was brilliantly designed to promote the McCain-Palin ticket...



• Stephen Spruiell: If you watched MSNBC on mute Wednesday night after Sarah Palin’s speech, it looked like the top story was that a hurricane swept through the North Pole and killed Santa Claus, so crestfallen were the network’s stars. It was the same with the sound up. Keith Olbermann’s first words after the applause in the Xcel Center finally died down were, “That appears to be the end of it.” He sounded relieved...
  
  After he’d had a moment to compose himself, Olbermann tried to come up with a better reaction. Of the speech, he said there was some “condescension in there towards Obama.” Condescension is an interesting word. Here’s a woman who was belittled for being a small-town mayor by a guy who described small-town people as clinging to their guns and religion because they’re bitter. And yet, when she hits him back, she’s the condescending one.

At this point I feel good about November no matter what happens. I'm starting to think about Palin 2012 or Palin 2016.

Labels: Media, News, Politics