"I could hardly help thinking that the McCain camp saw the Obamas with their two adorable daughters last week, and someone said: 'you want cute? I'll see your cute, and I'll raise you by three!'"

Well, I think it was not so much cute as, and this is Pat's point, waving that Down Syndrome baby at the country like a flag to say to people, "We are the party that don't kill no babies!"

Pat's right too, it worked, at least for a certain segment of people as David said. We'd be stupid to sit here and say Palin has no appeal, she certainly does but the real question is who does she appeal to? The media ate her up and praised the heck out of her speech but ask yourself why that is...McCain is a terrible speechmaker and his own campaign fears he always looks like a doddering old man. Palin looks great next to McCain and next to all the dullards you are forced to endure at a Republican convention. These guys make the dead guy at a wake look like the life of the party.

Remember too, the Republican party is known as the party of "old white guys" and they, of course, have an old white guy running for president. They wanted to add some spice, redefine the party, so adding a 42 year old woman that was a former beauty pageant contestant seemed like a great plan. After all the Democrats stole all the thunder having a woman and a black guy as their two leading candidates. They had the "historic" candidates, the Republicans had...well...a bunch of old white guys and just ask John Edwards what it's like having to stand onstage with that! He got asked point blank during the debates "Exactly what are you doing up there with the historic candidates? Shouldn't you have gone away by now?"

Palin looks so super to these people because their candidates look so bad and all of them looked bad all the way through the primaries. Palin is finally somebody that looks like a living breathing person to the Republicans and they all stood there with their mouths agape saying "Oh my! How did we end up with an actual person onstage?"

The answer is simple, the Republicans knew they were getting swamped and this is why Palin appeared out of nowhere. She was the glamour pick. When even Republican pundits wondered aloud how somebody like Palin got picked over what they felt was a far better candidate (Kay Bailey Hutchinson, for example) they soon answered the question for themselves. Sex appeal, baby! The Republicans needed some in a big bad way. They have already surrendered to the idea that Obama is going to wipe up the stage with McCain. Hell, they openly state they don't expect to win a single vote off of the debates and they proved that does not matter with Dubya. He looked like a moron next to Kerry but still came out on top in the election. So, the VP pick did not have to be about adding substance to the ticket, they wanted someone that would make people forget about what Biden would be saying and focus on the fact that she looks good and seems so nice!

Where they greatly miscalculated was by trying to have their cheesecake and eat it too. They thought that there would be Hillary Clinton voters that would suddenly fall in love with Palin just because she was female. Oops! They did not take into consideration that these "Hillary women" are as pro-choice as Ms. Sarah is anti-choice. In other words this is now starting to backfire in a big ugly way. After the excitement died down at the fact that Ms. Palin could actually read a speech (written for her by a professional speechwriter and Rove acolyte), that content-wise was pretty pathetic but had a few funny swipes at Obama, and the fact that the Republicans had actually put a young woman on the stage rather than another dry old white guy...well...they discovered that Ms. Palin is just not their kind of gal at all.

These are women that don't want senators and congressmen (that they have never even shook hands with) crawling around in their vaginas and legislating what they can and can't do with their bodies. Instead of winning Hillary voters they pushed them all over into the Obama camp for good! Sure, they wanted a woman in office but not a woman that would push legislation that takes rights away from women. Sarah can wave her Down Syndrome baby around all she likes and flash her pregnant "I'm keepin' the baby and havin' a shotgun weddin'" teenage daughter at the cameras but all she'll get out of that is the religious wingnuts. Truth is though, even these people are not sure they can bring themselves to vote for McCain and as more and more comes out about Palin that shiny new apple will start to rot.