After watching Gov. Sarah Palin accept the Republican party's vice presidential nomination last night, the common reaction is that the party's base loved what they heard in her speech. She generated real excitement among the delegates. Conservative talk radio sees Palin as the Republican version of Sen. Barack Obama.
This is important to the McCain campaign, because compared with Obama they have almost no field organization to speak of. Firing up their base will be critical to giving McCain a chance on Election Day.
However, the challenge for McCain still remains getting independents and
moderate Democrats to vote for him. In this respect, Palin's speech fell far short. In fact, focus groups of independent voters found her overly harsh in her sarcasm and not very appealing to this cohort of voters.
Nate Silver makes another very important point: "To many voters, she is either entirely unknown, or is known as an US Weekly
caricature of a woman who eats mooseburgers and has a pregnant
daughter. To change someone's opinion, you have to do one of two
things. Either, you have to be a trusted voice of authority, or you
have to persuade them. Palin is not a trusted voice of authority --
she's much too new. But neither was this a persuasive speech. It was staccato, insistent, a little corny. It preached to the proverbial choir."
The job of making independents and moderate Democrats vote for John McCain is McCain himself. That's what his speech is about tonight. He's a trusted figure. And he's given good convention speeches before. If he cannot connect with independents on the key issues -- in particular, the economy and health care -- it doesn't matter how good Sarah Palin was last night.
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