Not all attention is good attention; and not all buzz, wall to wall, will translate into votes.  Obama's speech was seen by forty million people and will resonate; the talk of Palin ... we'll see.

"Thursday, the night before Palin would be announced in Dayton, McCain's two top aides, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter, stayed with her in a cheap, out-of-the way hotel to avoid detection."

So much for investigative journalism ... all they had to go was stake out Schmidt.  Jeez.

Well, McCain's choice was spectacularly bad. Everyone loves a train wreck.

You're surprised, Michael?  Really?  It doesn't surprise me in the slightest.  (And, for the record, I think icarus is totally correct.)  Obama's speech was everything it needed to be, but it was hardly surprising.  He didn't demonstrate any superpowers or speak in tongues or anything, he just delivered an excellent speech in a stirring, inspiring way.  

The Palin pick generates buzz for a variety of reasons.  A woman!  A REPUBLICAN woman!  A woefully unqualified Republican woman!  A woefully unqualified Republican woman who shoots moose, used to be in beauty pageants, eschews abortion (personally and politically), backs creationism in schools, and has a shiny, new undue influence scandal!

I'm shocked that you're surprised.

well said, Dr Dan!

I'd also like to point out that at nearly 40 million viewers, Obama does not necessarily need much additional news coverage of his speech. It sounds like most of the nation was watching live in the first place.

The Palin pick will own the news cycle and push Obama's speech off the lede -- which was probably one of the main motivations for it.  But, the fall-out will come quickly, especially when her extreme right-wing positions start getting probed, and the extremely conservative (and many overtly racist or sexist) delegates start providing wonderfully hostile quotes to the news media in St. Paul.

In contrast, the Dems masterfully used the suspenseful expectation of a messy contentious floor battle (will Hill/Bill and her supporters make nice, or not?), to keep people watching through 4 nights.  Four nights of consistently on-message, and increasingly aggressive (though always high-minded) speeches, culminating in last night when many were tuning in to see if Obama would blow his speech in the face of such a massive build-up.  Instead, 40,000,000 people saw mastery and history!  Certainly the most effective acceptance speech since at least Reagan and probably far longer.  Those 40M who watched live, and the millions of others they talk to and influence, will NOT forget, despite the ADD of the MSM.  Palin is a gimmick to match McCain (also a gimmick), and will be forgotten quickly.

Agree with above. The Palin story deserves more attention because it's far more important. Since when is "Obama Delivers Great Speech!" a news flash? And besides, the actual content of the speech was a pretty unremarkable re-hash of established positions.

Palin, on the other hand, is probably a game-changer. I heard Barack's response in an interview this morning, and he was perfect--very complimentary and respectful. I hope Dems can maintain good message discipline here. Palin is so obviously unqualified, and her selection is so revelatory of bad judgment on McCain's part, that allowing it so sink in on its own is by far the strongest strategy. I understand she got the job after meeting with McCain only once. I don't think I've ever been hired even for silly jobs with only one interview.

It seems to me that McCain thought this was going to give him a crack at disaffected Hillary voters, which is simply bizarre on its face.

It's almost like the real target demo of the Palin pick was the media. She's new! We haven't been talking about her for two years! A shiny new toy to play with! Thank you, John McCain!