WELL, THAT'S OVER

Maybe not by much, but I fear that the world-weary gray eminence lost to the slogan-spewing mean girl.

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...Though Soledad O'Brien was just on CNN saying that the focus-group people were "dialing way down" in response to the folksy crap. And the focus group did seem to lean a bit in Obama and Biden's direction.

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Yowza -- Palin went straight from the debate to a rally. Forget whether McCain has health problems -- is Palin clinically manic?

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Forget what I said above -- a CNN snap poll says Biden was the winner, 51%-36%, and on the question of whether Palin is qualified to be president, she barely gets an uptick (and a majority still say no). And now I'm switching to Olbermann and he says a CBS snap poll gives Biden the win. FiveThirtyEight.com says, "Biden won the CNN and CBS focus groups. Palin won the Luntz focus group." (UPDATE: Here are the CBS numbers -- 46%-21% Biden among uncommitted voters -- and the CNN numbers. Hot Air has a clip of the more pro-Palin focus group of Frank Luntz.)

And oh, this is terrific -- in the Media Curves focus group, Biden gets slightly more Democrats on every issue than Palin gets Republicans, and Biden gets between 62% and 72% of independents on every issue. That's a knockout.

This may be a good time to bring in something Aimai said in comments here before the debate:

... I actually think that the "fence sitters" are watching and making up their own minds--and the way they watch is so different from the way the horse race is scored that its not even on the same planet. From reading around the words of independents/swing voters I just get the sense that for a lot of these people the big issues are just too big for Sarah Palin's trademark brand of cute'n bitchy. She's actually a bit too 2004, if you know what I mean. Right now people see the country as having huge problems--the financial crisis has nominally pushed the other stuff, like the environment and the war, off the front pages but in a funny kind of way its conributed to a larger/deeper sense that this is some kind of massive kali yug like moment which requires a really serious response. As McCain discovered even cranky, old guy, bitchiness was not a great selling point for undecided voters and former republicans who are waking up from an eight year slumber to find their country gone. I really don't think miss cutie pie "pyeuw! pwyeu!" I can shoot a moose is going to do more than piss people off.

I think that's right. I think that's a big part of why Biden is winning the snap polls (that and the fact that Biden represent a different set of policies and priorities). Maybe in 2000 or even 2004 Palin would be the popular favorite, but it's a new world now.

(I added a link to Aimai's comment.)

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And Pere Ubu is right about this:

Bible Spice stood there and talked to the American people as if we were a classroom of rather dim high school students, but she's the new teacher and she's just so HIP and talks like we do donchaknow and she's on our side and just think of her as a friend now!

Or maybe like a new manager for a bunch of minimum-wage drones and there's been some tough times but she's ready to start workin' and everyone's full of energy and let's go out there an' stock those shelves and do our best yay hurrah!

I don't know if he's right about Palin wearing a wire, but possibly....