happy sarah palin day!

Both days of the convention seem to get better as they go along.

Each day the convention starts with a series of fairly meaningless speakers with Norm Coleman sprinkled in here and there. I mean, honestly, who travelled to the Republican National Convention so that they could hear the founder of Auntie Anne's Pretzels speak? I mean she was decent, but this is the pinnacle of politics. Can't we get a Congressman or something? I digress.

Meg Whitman was the first major speaker of the day. She was pretty good, although I expected her to somehow tie in with Ssrah Palin selling her plane on eBay. She was followed by Carly Fiorina, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee, all solid.

The highlight of the night outside of the final two speakers was easily Maryland's Michael Steele. I mentioned earlier how I love him and was lucky enough to meet him at the NEGOP Convention. It's a shame he's stuck in liberal Maryland. The chants he started of "Drill, Baby, Drill" were continued during multiple later speakers.

Right before Rudy Giuliani spoke I had the thought that the convention thus far had been shockingly positive. That all changed with America's Mayor. Rudy played the role of pit bull and relentlessly attacked Obama with essentially the greatest hits of attacks on liberals- flip-flopper, anti-America, tax-raiser, et al. It accomplished the intended goal- Rudy is a great speaker.

As I write this, I'm watching a re-run of Sarah Palin's speech on FOX News. She was as truly amazing in person as she was on television. I could go on forever about how incredible the speech was, how enthralled the audience was, how in awe everyone was for hours following, but I won't. All I'll say is that Sarah Palin is the hope of our party: She is not only the present, but the future.


A little thing I noticed in person that I'm not on television is that Palin doesn't completely have talking to a large crowd down pat. She struggled with her starts and stops when there was thunderous applause and laughter. It's not much, but she'll learn. Also, I sat next to a woman from Alaska who actually works for one of Palin's (and McCain's) rivals, Senator Ted Stevens. While she admitted the two weren't best friends, she said that Stevens and every person on his staff idolized Mrs. Palin.

After the speech I wandered around the arena while the official nomination process. I actually ran in to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger having a discussion with D-list movie actor Steven Baldwin. No joke. Only at the RNC.

The official nomination process was fairly interesting. States voted in alphabetical order and actually, Nebraska would have been the state state to put McCain over the top. Except, teh right of putting the nominee is given to the candidate's home state. Every state from Nebraska to Wyoming passed, then Arizona got the honor. While each state pledged its votes to Senator McCain, they gave a cheap plug for themselves: Nebraska! Home of America's first female Republican Governor! (said so eloquently by Mark Quandahle)


After everyone had cleared out, I made it down on the floor for the first time this week. It's pretty impressive. Also on the floor was Triumph the Comic Insult Dog. If you don't know, it's a guy holding a dog puppet and making fun everybody. he's actually quite funny. the man holding the puppet and doing the voice is SNL legend Robert Smigel- he's actually hilarious in person. The gig he was doing was a song called "Sarah-brate Good Times" about Sarah Palin. Look for me on Conan O'Brien tomorrow night!

Insider tip of the day- I asked Mr. Smigel whether Tina Fey (ironically my favorite actress/comedian) would play Sarah Palin on SNL. His response- "Hopefully"

Tomorrow is McCain! Hopefully I'll snag a balloon! Night!