It's not as if everyone who has a strong personal support system is responsible and everyone who does not is irresponsible. Which is obvious. As everyone knows, there are a lot of jobs that do not pay enough to keep a roof over the head and pay for child care. And apparently a good number of women who are being paid less for the same work as their male counterparts. (The oft-repeated charge is that McCain voted against an equal pay bill, but I haven't researched the specifics to know what's going on.) There are abusive relationships that must be escaped, and domestic violent rates are high enough that it's not a trivial number.

The point is simply that Palin has a strong family and a well-paying job that allows her to pursue what she wishes, which is how we'd want it for everyone. However, many are not in that position. There are some things that government can do such as legal protections, adult education, and more that can help the less fortunate (some who are less fortunate due to irresponsibility and some who are just less fortunate)? Will Palin support some of these programs or no?

Because we continue to pay for today's failings tomorrow. The kids who join gangs in part because they never see the parent who works 60-70 hours, etc.

Seems overall fair to me.

Wrong again. Surprised at how well she did (as did Huckabee and Giuliani), definitely, as were so many others. Defending her successfully against unwarranted and unhinged, often hateful attacks, yep, no doubt about that, too.

It puts more pressure than ever on McCain to do well and we just have to wait and see (the odds are against it, and McCain's appearance after Palin's speech last night was clumsy, which reminds us of those odds, but you never know — more miracles can happen lately).

It was a triple. We expected extra bases from a VP choice but figured (not knowing her that well) that a double would be likely, but she hit a triple. (Not sneaking to third base when nobody was looking, as some might be motivated to claim afterward.)

What we expect from McCain is a triple, though a double is likelier than a home run if he doesn't get three bases.

It is amusing to me to see those on the Left that said Obama's strength of inspiring the Left base through his speeches, and that were also woefully short on substance, especially in the beginning, now claim that trait is a negative.

The point of all this? The same point I try to make over and over – all of us, especially here and other blogs, are overall partisans, not the 'centralist' and 'moderates' we like to think of ourselves, and we filter and criticize and accept and condemn based on those biases.

Make Palin a Democrat (and give her the 'correct' positions), and she would be worshiped as the idealism of the Modern Women of the Democrat's ideals. But make her the Republican she is, and she is shamefully neglecting her family to run for office.

But the Left, and the Feminist Movement in particular, showed their true colors back in the days of the Clinton scandal.

All political groups and affiliations are nothing but collections of whores and pimps.

But the point is, there is very little middle ground. Palin played it up to the home team, feeding the red meat to the party faithful and republican diehards. All she has managed to do is to further solidify the conservative vote behind McCain (and to a much smaller extent further solidify the liberal vote behind Obama).

But what Palin's speech did NOT do was reach out the the thin sliver of middle-of-the-road voters that the republicans need to win the election. Palin managed to shore up the support of the 40-45% of republican voters out there, and of course angered the 40-45% of Democratic voters that were not going to vote for her anyway. But in the process of veering to the hard right, she has probably turned off the 10-15% of the voters in the middle that either party needs to win the election.

It's an inauspicious beginning. The jury is still out (after it has been less than a week since 98% of Americans had even heard her name for the first time), but unless she manages to somehow reach out to the middle-ground moderate sliver of the electorate, McCain's ceiling will remain in the mid-40% range.

The one thing that disappoints me the most coming out of last night — it looks like we're in for two months of increasingly partisan bickering and sniping. Palin signalled a move to the hard right, and that's the way it's gonna play. Sure, I expected a partisan fight, but it looks like it's going to be more deeply divided and nastier than I had hoped. Sigh.

Glad to see you're consistent.

“I can imagine. If Johnny comes marching home with a serious performance, Leftyville is going to be desperate to find any way to rehash Keating 5.”

He's just struggling (and failing) to deny Palin's splendid success, in his own way, as are many today.

Palin is a winner, with substance that appeals broadly to Americans, not merely PC and feel-good style.

What substance?

No need for fake Greek columns

Ahh… that kind of substance…

You'd be funny if you weren't serious about all the crap you're spewing.

Palin is a winner, with substance that appeals broadly to Americans, not merely PC and feel-good style. No need for fake Greek columns adorning TV screens showing the person speaking in a contemporary entertainment-oriented environment, either. (Those TV screens with Greek columns — Real Americans [tm] should throw hammers at them…)

I waited and watched the last and the best. Huckabee and Giuliani both gave unexpectedly, surprisingly good speeches. That is a fact, whether lefties like it or not. (They can't take shots from an obviously higher road — as I was told earlier today, “Giuliani honorably and calmly skewered the Messiah. That doesn't play well in Lefty-Land…”)

I spent only a short time on the road at lunchtime, but it was long enough to “bridge” (or “connect,” I.e., span enough time to listen to the last of one and the first of the other of) two lefty radio* talk shows. (I was going to listen briefly to Limbaugh to check for gloating, but didn't bother because of the second lefty show's content.) The first, Stephanie Miller, was typically childish and stupid, continuing to generate into an amateur-obnoxious-they-think-it-is-good-comedy FM shock-jock smart-ass show. (The only thing of value, even in my neutral sense: Miller's nickname for Palin: “Caribou Barbie,” the VP chosen by “Grampy.”) Thom Hartmann, who can be ridiculously illogical at times like so many lefties, often can be okay, and today he was fairly calm, even if wrong about this and that, and at least some of his callers were halfway sane. One caller and Hartmann's response (an example why I listen to his show when I can) was good: She knew that Palin's speech would appeal to many Americans, and her response wasn't to whine and lie and attack (as has been done embarrassingly and disgracefully by people on this site as well as elsewhere, such as on other lefty radio programs today), but promptly to make another US member-of-the-ordinary-public donation to the Obama campaign that she was currently following by going to a local Obama campaign office to offer her voluntary assistance.

Like it or not (so many of you can't face the truth today), Palin is good, her selection really moved McCain *** and so much of the US public *** out of the doldrums (simply hoping to survive the coming storms and prevail in the end), and her speech was good (the attacks on it and on her today are stupid, stupid, stupid when not worse).

The thing to do now is wait and see how McCain does — even if he fails, all is not lost given how good Palin has been — and then wait for the glow to fade starting next week, when Obama returns on the nation's radar screen and the real fight begins.

Just a word of warning. In 2000, Gore had re-election handed to him; Bush was the desperation candidate by the GOP. The election was foretold all the way throughout the year. That is, until the debates, when Gore managed to repel people and Bush beat him. Bush, beating someone in the debates! At that point, the public sensed, “Hey, Bush can actually win this!” That momentum never ended and Bush won in the end.

We're seeing something equal and much greater happening this week, in a positive sense on the GOP side with Palin, doing more this year to remedy the concerns so many people have with McCain. Up to Palin's selection, Obama seemed likely to win.

Now it's not so certain, and once the glow of the initial reaction to choosing Palin and the surprisingly good GOP convention (we expected a funeral session and a pitiful bit of bleating, little else) is behind us, we'll see how much stronger this change to the election and its likely results is. But it's bad news for the expectant Obama fans. Maybe that explains why so many Palin attackers have stooped so low.

* Lefty radio has been a failure up to this year. This year lefty radio has finally achieved some measure of success. This cannot be ascribed solely to the Obama celebrity phenomenon (which has a broader buoyant effect on liberal Americans than just with the election prospects his November — Obama remains the leader at this time, even with a surprisingly good and improved GOP ticket and convention). It is related to a boost liberals have this year because of disenchantment with the GOP and conservatives overall, continuing beyond the big Thumbs Down, a big no-confidence vote against the GOP and conservatism, in 1996. Note that McCain's choice of Palin has erased much of this, at least currently (briefly remains to be seen).

Absolutely, and even more important (along with McCain's speech and that speech's effect on the current momentum) is how McCain does after the RNC.

The debates — I can't wait for them. But from next week until then, what can we expect? Meanwhile, it's up to McCain to complete the picture: “Back in the fight!”