I didn’t get to see the Palin acceptance speech live, so the impact is probably a bit less for me. Nonetheless it was a great speech. The nomination of Sarah Palin changed the dynamic of this election. Win or lose, she is now a national political figure and we’ll be seeing her again. The vicious personal attacks by the Obama campaign and it’s surrogates are signs of their serious concern that the momentum in this election has now changed.

Mrs. TOTWTYTR did see the speech live and her comment was that Palin hit it out of the park. Which seems to the the consensus among the people I’ve talked to. Most of whom are center-right, but a few of which are center-left.

Mrs. TOTWTYTR opined that Governor Palin pulls in the working moms, the hockey moms, the single moms (through her daughter), and finally the special needs moms. If she’s correct, that’s a lot of votes.

It should be noted that 40 million people watched that speech, more than watched Obama’s oration.

It should also be noted that if you’re the candidate for President and you have now been drawn into a comparison of your qualifications with those of the other party’s number two candidate, you’ve lost. People are going to think that you don’t want to compare yourself to their Presidential candidate for some reason. It makes it look as if you’ve been knocked off message, as if the other side has gotten inside your head. In other words, like a loser.

I’m looking forward to the Vice Presidential debate, it should be very entertaining. It might even be the last time we see Joe Biden until after the election when he goes on the Sunday morning bore fests to explain why they lost. We can only hope.

I did get to see Senator McCain’s speech. I was at a friend’s house and we watched it together. We’re both kind of political junkies, so we were batting comments around all night during the undercard speeches.

McCain started off rather slow, as if he was a bit uncomfortable speaking to such a large crowd. He started to warm up when he talked about his years as a Prisoner of War in Hanoi. The story of his transition from a cocky, me first, fighter pilot to country before self patriot was moving. As he spoke, he became more animated, more sure of himself and his mission. I think he hit all the right notes and ended at the right time.

His getting the government out of our way (and wallets) talk was almost, and I mean almost, Reaganesque.

The professional pundits viewed the speech less kindly, but I think they are wrong. I think McCain connected not with the pundits and experts, but with the voters, especially those that have been less than enthusiastic about him.

I thought the speech was very good, my slightly to the left of me on most things friend, thought it was terrific. Neither of us were all that thrilled with McCain before he picked Governor Palin, but with this speech he sealed the deal. Mrs. TOTWTYTR agreed, she said the speech was moving.

Suddenly, starting last Friday, Obama and his allies are starting to look less sure of themselves, less anointed, if you will. The momentum is starting to shift to McCain/Palin, I just hope it continues.

A couple of notes. NBC, you suck. There was no reason to hold the camera on the classless protesters. You should have been like Major League Baseball when it comes to on field idiocy. Don’t show it. Which brings me to the second note. Stay classy Democrats. Infiltrating Code Pink and other assholes into the conventional hall tells us a lot about your ethics, or lack there of. And yes, they are your people, even if you won’t admit it.