HOME RUN!

Of course, we’re talking about the speech Sarah Palin gave tonight.

But before we go into detail on that, let’s recap a great day here in St. Paul!

Breakfast was served on a paddleboat on the Mississippi River, and our delegation was hyped with excitement for the coming evening.

Billy Bridwell took home the prize for most party pride as measured in flair!

After that, many of the delegates went to the convention center to help with preparing relief packages for Hurricane Gustav victims.  This continued a week-long effort to provide assistance to folks in the Gulf Coast Regions.  From all appearances, the Republican Party was really opening its heats and wallets for the cause.

Evening came, the convention started, and the first 90 minutes lasted four days, or at least it felt that way.  Helping to pass the time was a nice conversation with Augustus Shaw, an up and coming star.  Just one man’s opinion here, but some folks have the “It” factor and this guy seems to have plenty of it.  Someone in the state party needs to get him to run for something quickly!  But eventually, Shaw had to leave and the remaining speakers droned on.  With the exception of a great speech by Michael Steele, folks were left counting down the minutes to the evening’s headliners.  And there were a lot of them!  First up was Mitt Romney, who took his jabs at Obama and Al Gore.  Romney was greeted very warmly by the delegates and he was followed by Mike Huckabee, who garnered even more applause.  Huckabee’s sense of humor helped him as he sharped the attacks on Obama’s lack of record, in direct contrast to the Republican ticket of McCain-Palin.  We got to hear from Linda Lingle, the Republican Governor of Hawaii.  Most folks seemed aware of this history-making Governor and how rare it was that a Republican Governor from Hawaii would even exist.  By now, as Lingle made the case for women governors, Palin Fever was raging in the hall.  Then they introduced our keynote speaker for the evening, Rudy Giuliani.  America’s Mayor saved his best for last and he rained rhetorical blows on the Obama-Biden ticket.  Too many good lines to remember, but his wit and sarcasm did New York and the GOP proud!

Then came Palin and the place went nuts.  Conservatives have got a future champion to cheer for here.  I’m going to assume that most SA readers watched the speech, so there isn’t much sense re-hashing it here, but her delivery was nearly flawless, her timing impeccable, her sense of humor and smile won her Mrs. Congeniality all over again, and she displayed an ability to attack while smiling.  She also spent a decent amount of time on foreign matters which gave her the opportunity to come across as very knowledgeable and “up to the job”.  I imagine that the media will be largely favorable to her, in spite of her (and most of the other speakers) using the media as their preferred punching bag.

Three odd events from the evening.  First, what happened at the end?  McCain came on stage, everybody cheered, he said a few words, everybody cheered some more, then it got quiet so he could finish…  And nothing happened…  We couldn’t tell if someone else was going to come out, if McCain was going to say “See you tomorrow!” or what?  Eventually McCain shrugged and everyone left the stage to continued applause.  Something didn’t go off as planned there.  Second, how did two protesters, each of whom was your typical hippie-looking leftie, get within twenty feet of the stage during Palin’s speech?  With an entire crowd dressed in their fancy duds for the evening, these two would have stuck out like crazy!  Where did they get passes to get that close?  Not a good night for the folks guarding the perimeter tonight.  And third, what was that picture behind Mike Huckabee when he spoke?  While every speaker got fancy graphics or beautiful images of Mt. Rushmore or fields of grain, Huckabee’s looked like the near-empty parking lot of a bank or something.  It served no purpose in terms of context for his speech and it was a distraction from his speech for those delegates who kept asking each other “What is it?”

Observations aside, an amazing night, and folks are ready for the big finish tomorrow, followed by an energetic campaign when we all return home.  See you tomorrow!

P.S.  An obligatory Mall of America reference.  Yup, the place is huge and yes, it has roller coasters inside (among other rides).  But the Lego store has got amazing creations made entirely from Lego pieces.  Dinosaurs, rocket ships, BMX racers and more.  If this blogging thing doesn’t work out, I think I found my next dream job!  These two below are more than ten feet long.

NOTE:  Technical difficulties prevented this post from going up last night.   We present it here in its entirety.

The Arizona delegation is all dressed up and finally has someplace to go! The convention schedule has returned to normal and with the abbreviated Day 1, events are being compressed, which makes for an even fuller Day 2. Mayor Giuliani has been moved to Wednesday and tonight’s program includes Fred Thompson before finishing the evening with Joe Lieberman. Expect a standing ovation for Joe! His photograph was inserted into an earlier video that featured a series of Republican heroes, and he was the only Democrat in the entire video. It is clear that McCain and Lieberman share a very strong mutual affection and respect.

So far, it has been another big night for Arizona as our own Wes Gullett was featured and had the opportunity to tell the story of Cindy McCain’s rescue of two beautiful girls after a visit to Mother Teresa’s orphanage. One was adopted by the McCains, the other by the Gulletts. The story is a touching one that a surprising number of folks in our own delegation were hearing for the first time. It was nice that the nation got a chance to hear the story.

Former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Graham Keegan also got a prime time speaking opportunity.

Laura Bush was her usual radiant self and she introduced President Bush via video. Its an interesting sight when a convention hall full of people give a large video screen a standing ovation!

Then it was red meat time and Fred Thompson delivered. He was the perfect pitchman to contrast John McCain’s lifetime of service with Barack Obama’s speech on service. He delivered the lines and the crowd ate it up. More than one delegate pointed out that had Thompson campaigned with the same energy that he delivered this speech, this could have and probably would have been his convention instead. A Thompson-Palin ticket? We’ll leave you to imagine that one!

Lieberman’s speech was well received and probably played a very important role in the campaign’s message and outreach, even if a few of his lines met with mixed reviews. The crowd didn’t really applaud much when he compared Obama’s record to Bill Clinton’s, but you didn’t expect the Clinton years to get a standing ovation here.

When the event ended everyone rushed back to the hotel to pile into the hospitality suite and watch the Arizona election returns. The mood was very upbeat as this largely conservative delegation watched the results from a number of key election contests. Even nicer to hear were the conversations between key players regarding getting the people and money together to win in November. If any hard feelings remain from the primaries, no one here, with very few exceptions, seems to be holding a grudge.

Wednesday night is Palin night and folks here are JACKED UP to hear her speak.  Get to your television sets and don’t miss it!

Other contested races last night included Maricopa County Precinct Committeemen, particularly in legislative district 11. Several high profile precinct committeemen and party officials were under challenge.

Results do not appear to be available via the County Recorder’s Office but SA welcomes your comments for those who may have more information on those races.