Sarah Palin had to do one thing: She had to show that she belonged. Had she bombed or even stumbled a bit, the media's "unqualified" narrative would have gained currency and the questions about her vetting would have taken on new significance.
She didn't. The speech was a masterpiece. She was gentle, but not gauzy; and then tough but not nasty. Her speech inched right up to too-negative line, but never crossed it. She stepped on her applause lines, but in an odd way, it came off as endearing -- as if the adulation from the audience was almost unexpected.
One sign of how good it was: The Obama campaign was reduced to praising Palin's delivery and attacking the speechwriter, Matt Scully, because he worked for George W. Bush. Lame. Better to have not put out any statement at all. I'm told -- and was told before the speech -- that she had a strong hand in writing and rewriting the speech, working on for several hours over the past three days. And one of the loudest applause lines in the entire speech was her joke -- which Bill Kristol previewed here two days ago -- that the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick, was line she improvised when delegates from Michigan, all wearing hockey jerseys, applauded loudly at her initial mention of being a hockey mom.
On "Larry King," Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz attacked her for selling the state's airplane on Ebay and suggested that having done so somehow makes her unqualified to be vice president. I'm not sure the rest of country -- people who shop on Ebay -- will agree with her.
And Obama campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs defended Barack Obama's community service -- a response that came off as whiny and weak.
So how well did Sarah Palin do tonight? On the way out of the speech tonight, one delegate said to a friend: "Can we flip the ticket?" A little off-message, but a sign of the enthusiasm for Palin in the hall.
