Sarah Palin Rocks!

Sarah Palin's speech last night at St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center is sending tsunami waves through the political establishment. The insiders' expectations this morning suggest that Palin will dominate the news cycle throughout September (and Barack Obama is "yesterday's news").

Americans witnessed Palin's innate skills last night. As Newsweek's cover story this week noted:

She is fearless and natural, and it's no wonder she charmed a fierce contrarian like John McCain.

Jay Nordlinger picked up on that theme in his reaction to Palin's stemwinder:

She’s one of the most talented politicians in America — a natural. You can’t learn that kind of thing. You simply have it (or you don’t). I suppose Sarah Palin will get better as a politician. But she’s damn good now. She will not hit her stride. She entered with her stride.

But Roger L. Simon's kudos perfectly capture the Palin prairie fire sweeping the nation:

In all my years writing movies, going to drama school, etc., I have almost never seen anything so dramatic. It was the rebirth of Frank Capra for our times - Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington. This woman is a star and a star of the American kind we have not seen for years. She really is born live from a Capra movie, from the days Hollywood told stories about the greatness of our country. I don’t agree with her about everything but so what? I don’t agree with anybody about everything except, luckily for me, my wife. But Sarah Palin is a force of nature. Like a Jimmy Stewart character channeled by Claudette Colbert.

The big losers tonight are obvious: Joe Biden, who will look like hackopathropus erectus next to her, a dinosaur out of the Washington everybody hates, and Hillary Rodham Clinton who, I would bet anything, was staring at her television set in horror tonight at the possible first woman president of the United States - and it’s not her!

Palin's performance was so powerful that her address has thrown the left into fits of apoplexy. Indeed, John Dickerson's article this morning boasts the catchy subtitle: "Why the Smiling, Sudden, Relentless Sarah Palin Should Scare Democrats" (although Dickerson's way too quick to suggest Palin's a one-hit wonder).

In a new pre-speech survey, Rasmussen found a majority of 51 percent agreeing that "reporters are trying to hurt Sarah Palin with their news coverage."

While Obama still holds a lead in Gallup's latest tracking poll, the McCain-Palin prairie fire will double its scorching power after McCain's acceptance speech tonight. Early focus-groups survey's indicate that "McCain's selection of the first-term Alaska governor will help his campaign," so by the weekend it's likely that whatever bounce the Democrats picked up in Denver will have evaporated.

It's been a long time in American politics since the public's been so rocked by a vice-presidential nomination, and this election's just now getting started!

Image Credit: Flopping Aces