Post-Palin Speech Thread at MyDD

Here.

First thoughts... There is no doubt that Sarah Palin is a good speaker, perhaps even a great one for this context. She certainly acquitted herself well, and came off as competent (the bar was low in a sense, because of the week's bad news, but also high in that she needed to deliver at least a decent speech in order to not end up being a complete drag on the GOP ticket). In all, it was a good speech.

However Palin also came off as angry -- really angry -- and it's not clear to me that America is in a place where they want an angry ticket. Where there were feelings of combativeness towards the world four years ago, a sense of defiance, today it's not clear to me that we are still in a Rudy Giuliani moment. Indeed, Giuliani's campaign was the least successful in modern history, garnering a single delegate for the roughly $60 million spent. Republicans might be there; those in the hall sounded enthused at the harsh rhetoric from Palin. But whether the American people are there still at this moment in time remains to be seen. . . .