The Vig

Apparently I saw a different speech than everyone else.  I mean I saw the same speech, it was shrill and after 8:00 (11:00 EDT) it went George Costanza “one too far”.  But for the most part, I think she did exactly what she needed to do.  She proved she could read a teleprompter.  She also proved that she didn’t have two-heads.  And she got off a couple of good one-liners.  The hockey mom-pitbull-lipstick line was perfect.  Sullivan thought it looked like an American Idol final.  FiveThirtyEight thought it was over the top.  And this high school forensics coach wants to pull his hair out.

Me?  I think she knocked it out of the park.  Part of her advantage during the last three days is it gave people on all sides time to project and focus that which they wanted to see.  The base sees one of their own while the left sees a backwoods rube.  Boss Hogg in a banana clip.  Neither version is 100% correct, of course, but that’s how it broke down.  The fact that she’d been underground for the last 72-hours or so only helped to foster this thing.  It’s like those last few days before the new summer blockbuster comes out.  You’ve been reading Ain’t It Cool and you’ve been reading Rotten Tomatoes.  You even text Aaron Duran, who’s seen the movie but is forbidden to tell you anything about it.

So it was tonight.  I tuned in just to see if she could read the teleprompter without fumbling over herself.  The answer?  Yes. She. Can.  From the very first minute, I knew Obama and Biden were in trouble.  Deep, deep trouble.  She’s good.  She’s really good.  And she’s going to cause the Dems fits in Ohio and Pennsylvania.  These are the two states, you’ll recall, that went for Hillary on the backs of the “working class” voters.  She’s one of them.  Big time.  And they’re going to love her.

The dynamic of the campaign has reversed as of tonight and it’s going to take a few days to see what damage has been done.  We’ll know by probably Monday or Tuesday of next week.

Here’s the plus-side, though.  Obama is nowhere in sight right now.  And that’s as it should be.  Candidates generally stay low during their opponents’ convention.  So they no doubt watched the speech tonight and are planning their counter.  In the end, I have a feeling Palin is going to look like a yip dog nipping at Obama’s heels and what looked viscious tonight will turn out to just be sad in a few weeks.  There’s a reason Obama overcame this crap during the primaries.  I think people, for the most part, are tired of it.

All that said, it will still come back to Ohio and Pennsylvania.  As of tonight, Ohio is barely tilting toward Obama while he leads in Pennsylvania by about 8 points.  If Obama can pick-up both of those states, the election is over.  If she can tilt just one of them back toward McCain, then things get interesting real fast.  Ohio, a red state for the last two elections, is most likely.  Ohio, by the way, has gone in the winning column every election since 1964.  You want to win?  You win Ohio.

Am I scared tonight?  Yeah, a little.  Fortunately there’s still miles to go before the election.  Oh how I wish Tim Russert could have gotten an hour alone with her.  Instead we’re going to have to settle for a tired Tom Brokaw and Sean Hannity’s bitch, George Stephanopoulos.  We’ll make do with what we have, I guess.

I’m still confiedent, but this thing just got a whole lot closer.