Just a bit early...

but, just in case anyone is curious, so far it looks like Palin's effect on the race isn't amazing (when you get down to demographic polls). The McCain-Palin ticket manages a slight increase in Republican white women, but otherwise everything (including both independent men and women) is shifting toward Obama. Also, "...[o]ver half [of the women polled] (52%) say the Obama-Biden ticket has more experience, while only 37% say McCain-Palin is more experienced. Not only did the Palin pick negate McCain's experience "argument," as many commented, but it actually completely erased McCain's advantage, among women, in just a few short weeks."

I'm not quite sure what the author means by "a few short weeks," since Palin has obviously only been a factor for a matter of days, but still interesting stuff...

Sandpoint's little civil war

Ben Stein, sometimes resident of Sandpoint, ID, is pretty critical of Sandpoint native Sarah Palin:

"She should have Henry Kissinger babysitting her."

Alaska National Guard

Recently Republicans have tried to argue that Palin has some kind of experience on account of her being the commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard (I say "some kind" because it hasn't been clear whether that was suppose to be foreign experience, military experience, both, or something else entirely.)

As it turns out, Palin has never issued a single order to the Alaska National Guard. (Accept to delegate all such decisions to Maj. Gen Craig Campbell, the service commander of the ANG.) In Giuliani's words, she has "never led anything. Nothing. Nada" having to do with the Alaska National guard.

Another interesting tidbit: Her first trip overseas - not just as governor, but ever - was last year (she visited troops in Kuwait and Germany).

I've heard from a reliable person that it is very common for governors to meet with high level foreign officials - but I can't find any evidence that Palin has ever done that either. Can you? (Seriously, I'd like to hear about it...)

Last night...

Watching Palin's speech confirms for me my initial reaction to the pick: probably the right person to give McCain a shot at the white house. I thought her delivery was surprisingly good (but that is partly because she had a ridiculous parade of speakers before her- Romney, Giuliani, and Huckabee).

The real question is whether the pick will continue to look like a highly political choice. If McCain and Co can keep attention away from the actual work Palin has done, then they have a good chance of making a very close election (I say close, because there's still a lot of work to be done). In that regard, I think all the personal stuff about Palin's daughter may turn out to be helpful. If the McCain camp can keep pointing out (quite correctly) that the pregnancy of her teen daughter is essentially a non-issue, then they may get away with ignoring other (legit) critiques. That is, whatever hit Palin takes for her pregnant daughter has already been inflicted- talking more about it isn't going to hurt the ticket.

Finally, I'm not familiar with Nate Silver, but Sullivan brings this summary to my attention:

You have Mitt Romney -- one of the wealthiest men ever to run for office -- critiquing east-coast elitism, and Mike Huckabee -- who is an economic populist in disguise -- critiquing big government, and Sarah Palin -- who voters don't know one iota about -- critiquing Barack Obama's biography.

Republicans on Palin

Josh Marshall just posted this conversation between Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy. I had heard some rumblings that there were a lot of political consultants and general insiders, who are more than a little annoyed about McCain's choice.

Of course, these "whispers" are probably not that big of a deal for the campaign (the spin is relatively easy- "of course 'insiders' will be pissed off that McCain is "bucking tradition.")

Still, I agree with them that it has got to be hard to be Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, or either of the senators from Maine (Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe). All have substantially more experience...but, they all also happen to be pro-choice. Rice was obviously out because he could never beat the "McSame" charges with her serving as vice-president...

Pale about Palin...

I think Palin was absolutely the perfect choice for McCain...but I'm going to ignore that for now, to bring you a symbolic representation of the 2000 presidential election...

I hope it won't track on to my emotional journey in 2008 so easily. ("What- it'll never happen; ah...it might; yes, yes, yes; Well, shit.")

Especially since there's such an easy fix...