Limbaugh did the same thing today - I suppose everybody knows that now, though. It makes me very, very worried for our country that there are those in Pat Buchanan's position who feel comfortable saying this. Obama's election might turn out to be a kind of pyrrhic victory...

Palin's quick rise this election season is the result of a combination of things that will probably not be present in four years (fingers crossed). Most important - the GOP's need this summer for a presidential candidate who could have successfully reached out to the middle and captured it to win the White House. I believe that this is fundamentally why McCain won the GOP primary; most Republicans saw him as the "maverick" who could do that. Until, of course, he went the wrong way with Palin. She, on the other hand, will never be able to capture moderates, especially if Obama (fingers crossed again) has a relatively successful first term. She will be the picture that comes to mind when people talk about the way the party used to be and what killed it.

One thing that the Obama ad reminded me of was that he has done, or has managed to get others in his campaign to do, almost everything exactly right. Managing a campaign of this magnitude for this long is no easy task - it is a grueling foreshadow (at the risk of overstating things a bit) of the job of the presidency. He is clearly a person who knows how to manage, inspire and build consensus among the people around him, attributes of the best kind of leader.

It WAS interesting to see him contrasted so starkly with DeLay, an example of the worst kind of leader.

What a phenomenon, this scare tactic. I have a feeling that many of these people, who are evidently very susceptible to believing the flashiest, scariest scenario that underscores an adamantine world-view shaped largely by the ancient fears of the cold war, are going to wake up sometime soon and realized that they have been "had" in the same way radio listeners woke up the morning after Halloween Night in 1938, when Orson Wells fooled them with his famous "War of the Worlds" broadcast.

I have a feeling that Sarah Palin will go down as the same kind of historical (hysterical?) footnote, one that causes us to laugh at how ridiculous we can be.

Don't misunderestimate, either, the power of hubris. Democrats need to be careful not to make the same mistake that Republicans made ten years ago and claim they've got a headlock on the majority. What we have witnessed is the healthy swing of the pendulum, at best - and it's still more than two months until Obama is sworn in. I have always believed that he was the best choice for president and I am overjoyed at his victory, but he has not begun to govern yet, and he has an incredible mess to clean up, and he will be the target of a lot of criticism from those left standing in the smoking ruins of the old G.O.P. What will the new G.O.P. look like? Watch out. Once they jettison the parts of the coalition that America is tired of - namely, the religious right, among others (Mormons need to stand down) - and begin to retool the moderate conservative wing, they will be a political force to be reckoned with.

Like Palin or hate her, the essential problem with a national candidacy is that she is such a polarizing figure. Her polemical stump speeches, the move to go "rogue", the questions about the bridge and the trooper and the clothes and the history of personal vindictiveness, the reported lack of curiosity and resistance to being brought up to speed on the issues (which so resembles the approach of the current occupant of the White House) - all of these things are not simply public opinion. Her accent is not the problem; it is her seeming inability to form a cogent sentence when one is sorely needed. Palin may be smart. I don't doubt she is. But whatever intelligence and political talent she may have is obviously overshadowed and marginalized by an overweening ambition. It is this disconnect between her knowledge and readiness and her ambition that makes her different from the others - the Governor of Kansas, for example - and so repulsive to so many.

What Palin's recent media tour does best is remind those who don't like her why they don't: there is a serious disconnect between her readiness to serve on the national level and her overweening ambition. Watching her go through these latest attempts to re-introduce herself is like watching an actress whose impatience to take the stage has prevented her from adequately studying her part.