John McCain has picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate.  She brings a number of pluses to the table.  She has a reputation for being a reformer in Alaska politics.  Alaska is the part of the debate on energy. She would be the first female to run for Vice-President on the Republican ticket and she is also socially conservative, being pro-life and a lifetime NRA member.

The only minus is that she was elected Governor in 2006 so the experience charge may be effectively neutralized by both political camps.

Let the games begin.

Give it to the Democrats.  They got their act together.  They went into a convention with questions and issues about unity, broadening their appeal, the possibility of a floor fight and whether their nominee could hit one out of the park.  Give them credit, they pulled it off.

While the GOP is still struggling to get 10,000 to John McCain’s Vice-Presidential announcement today, the Dems managed to get 80,000 people in a place built for 76,000.  Barack Obama even got praise from Conservatives like Ed Rollins and Charles Krauthammer. 

Beating Barack will not be easy.  He has a ton of cash, a heck of an organization (they got an estmiated 3 million phone numbers from last weeks text messaging efforts) and he demonstrated in his speech last night that he will take the gloves off.

To beat him,  the GOP will have to use a scalpel instead of a two by four and methodically cut away at his arguments instead of direct frontal assaults.  Regardless, Republicans underestimate them at their own risk.

So despite your politics, give the man his due.   And let’s see what things look like after the GOP convention in Minnesota.

I’m sitting down watching Barack Obama accept his party’s nomination for the Presidency of the United States.   I don’t necessarily agree with all his positions, but I am taken back by the history of the moment.  If you can’t appreciate the history in the making, it’s probably because you have never had a reason to.