sarah palin

One of the media wise guys said before the vice presidential debate that it was like a NASCAR race – a good percentage of the fans came to see one or both candidates hit the wall and spin out.

The thrill-seekers were disappointed. Sarah Palin, the newest of newcomers on the national scene, held her own against Senate veteran Joe Biden, who seems to have been a DC figure since the Ice Age.

After a painful patch of bad interviews, Palin reverted to her appealing, just-plain-folks form, cheerfully punctured the pompousness of DC insiders, answered the questions, and even gave Biden a little chin music that scored a few hits.

For his part, Biden...

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You had to be there.

Once Sarah Palin stepped to the microphone, the reasons for her extraordinary appeal to Republican faithful and for the impression that she made on John McCain became instantly apparent.

Even veteran commentators jaded by political windbaggery likened her to Ronald Reagan, the gold standard of GOP charisma. Best speech at a GOP convention in years, they said.

That’s not media hyperbole. The hockey mom’s command of the audience in the St. Paul hockey arena was real, even from up in the rafters where I was seated. Those who dismiss Palin as a former beauty queen chosen for her double-X chromosomes do so at their peril. They'll be wondering what just hit them. Just ask Frank Murkowski and Tony Knowles, the veteran Alaska pols whom Palin flattened.

Quite a promotion for a former small town mayor and governor of a faraway state who could have walked incognito down any street in the lower 48 only one week before.

Yes, yes, say environmentalists, but look at her record of promoting drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, her doubts about the human imprint on climate change, and her state government’s opposition to listing the polar bear as a threatened species. Her energy policy is all about drilling rigs and pipelines. Their fear is that she will cast a spell on McCain and make him change his mind about climate change and the Arctic refuge. ...

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