one more thing about Palin

After her big speech, there's no way she gets Eagleton'd. She's a hilariously flawed candidate, but she's absolutely earned the devotion of the republican base, and McCain can't give up that benefit, even if it literally might be the Only benefit.

We forget now, but last year the Republican field of candidates was an embarassing, motley mess. John McCain won by default against a mean-spirited transvestite, a lazy actor, a weird and despicable east-coast millionaire, and a likable-but-dumb christianist who didn't hate taxes enough.


The Republicans just wanted a charismatic social conservative the whole time, and now Sarah Palin has emerged as exactly that person. She could've been the nominee this year, if her career was just a year or two older. There's no surprise that the mere mention of her name drew the biggest, most impassioned applause during McCain's speech. They genuinely prefer her, plain and simple.


The most striking moment of this convention came right after Palin's speech. The crowd had been screaming and cheering with extraordinary energy, for a solid hour, and suddenly McCain made his cameo appearance with her. All of that passion she fired up, and suddenly we remember that it's all for the cause of this shriveled, pasty peanut of a man. It really looked like Oz emerging from behind the curtain.

McCain looks like a little old man, trying to hitch himself to her star. The future of the GOP is not with him and maybe he knows it, maybe not. But he's unleashed something with this pick that he can't necessarily control.


Sarah Palin is bigger than John McCain right now, and I don't know if anything is gonna change that.