Pressure, What Pressure???

No one better could have put Sarah Palin’s speech tonight in better perspective than the late legendary movie trailer announcer Don LaFontaine. Called the “king of voiceovers” LaFontaine could set up the story line:

“In a rough and tumble world where the enemy is everywhere — from CNN’s Campbell Brown asking questions of a spokesman — the world awaits … and wonders…"

MUSIC CHANGE to the William Tell Overture…

“Could a former beauty queen, now a mother of five from Alaska be the next Vice President? First she has to win the hearts and minds of a skeptical America."

“It’s the outrageous, feel-good movie of the year: “Sarah Goes to Washington.”

OK. Real world: Taking on the Alaskan establishment and wrestling away the top political office in the state after beating two powerhouse names was no small feat for Palin. The woman has shown she knows how to win and impresses people on both sides of the aisle for her substance.

But that hasn’t stopped political insiders and pundits from observing that the rising Republican star could have used a few more years of seasoning before running for the second highest office in the land.

Early or not, she’s got the spotlight now. And she’s had it since last Friday. It’s been five complete days since John McCain reminded the country why he’s been called a renegade, a maverick, a cowboy. By selecting the-then virtually unknown Palin, he made her the main subject of the GOP convention so far — and her speech tonight the most widely anticipated of the week.

Contrast this to five days after Barack Obama selected Joe Biden. The news of the day? Hillary Clinton’s “come back to the fold” speech, Montana Governor’s yee-haw fire-em-up oratory, and Mark Warner … does anybody recall what he said?

Politico asks this morning, “Can the GOP stop talking about Palin?” It’s not just the GOP, it’s everywhere.  I think she is getting more buzz than Michael Phelps!

A quick perusal around some of the major mainstream news sites shows the LA Times leading with, “McCain had criticized earmarks from Palin.” The New York Times has “Palin’s start in Alaska: not politics as usual.”

The Wall Street Journal leads with “GOP tightens VP image control.” The New York Post - in typical New York Post fashion - screams, “Shining knights - GOP defends damsel in distress Palin.”

The San Francisco Chronicle simply puts it “Spotlight on Sarah Palin.”

People watch tightrope walkers because they might fall and splatter on the ground, and when they reach the end of the line safely, there is a great release of tension. So it is with tonight’s prime-time acceptance speech by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, picked by Republican presidential candidate John McCain to be his running mate.

One of the most anticipated political speeches in memory will begin to answer whether McCain’s gamble on the unknown chief executive of a sparsely populated and remote state was wise.

But there’s no pressure.

Upon the surprising news a last week that McCain was picking Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be on his ticket the immediate talking point from the left, emanating specifically from the Obama campaign, was that Palin was too inexperienced. After all, according to the left, wasn’t Palin just a small town mayor a few years ago?

Well now the liberals, including Obama himself, have figured out that bashing a VP pick as “too inexperienced” might not be a good idea when your Presidential nominee is a Senator who hasn’t even completed one term yet.

Obama doesn’t want to go too far down that road.

Obama is clearly going to leave the Palin-bashing to his surrogates, but riddle me this: If Palin is too inexperienced to be VP, how in the world is Obama experienced enough to be President?

What experiences has Obama had that make him more qualified to run the country than Palin? The liberals seem bent out of shape about Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience, but what has he done in that regard that makes him such a better candidate than Palin? Time and again squirming liberals who are pressed to name Obama’s major accomplishments tell us about his having presided over the Harvard Law Review and having worked as a “community organizer” (whatever that is). Comparing those “accomplishments” to Palin’s shows that she’s got a lot more under her belt than Obama.

Palin cut wasteful spending in the Alaska budget. She pushed through a natural gas pipeline that her predecessors in Alaska had been trying to get built for thirty years. She’s refused federal earmarks for her state when she felt they weren’t necessary saying that she didn’t think it was right for people in the “lower 48” to pay for Alaskan projects. She’s fought to expand domestic drilling. She stood up to corrupt members of her own party (most notably Senator Ted Stevens). What has Obama done that rivals any of these?

He gave a good speech at the 2004 Democrat convention? He’s spent most of a partial Senate term campaigning for President?

Basically, the "Palin Buzz" going to create a huge audience for her speech whether she walks out there and blows it or hits it out of the park. With every question, with every controversy the audience gets bigger so that when she walks out there — it could be one of the most dramatic moments of either convention.

The question is, could the audience for Palin’s speech top Barack Obama’s 40+ million?

We’ll find out. She’s in the spotlight tonight at 10 p.m. (9 p.m. Texas time)


Also, set your Tivo's for Tomorrow night -- a long awaited one on one with Barack Obama and Bill O'Reilly at 8 PM Eastern/7 Central on Fox News!!!

Great week!