With the DNC in the books, and the RNC beginning on Monday, I thought I would take a quick look at both conventions at this point.

The Democratic convention went really well. All four days went well, with each day better then the previous one. That was by design, as the idea is to build up to the culmination of the nominee accepting the nomination and their speech. That was successful as 85,000 people watched Obama’s speech in person and an estimated 37,000,000 watched on television. One of the biggest goals was to unite all of the Clinton supporters behind Obama and I think that all of the players did a good job of that.

However, the Democrats got a huge hand from the Republicans in their task. Or more specifically, John McCain. Personally, I love his pick of Sarah Palin as his Vice President. If there is not a more blatant example of pandering, I don’t know what is. It is obvious that he is pandering to the supporters of Hillary. If he wanted to go with youth, Bobby Jindal would have been a better selection. If he wanted a woman, Kay Bailey Hutchison would have been a better choice. Once people learn about her, I don’t think most women who supported Hillary will end up supporting her (and those on the left and most independents). It made his job of getting the support of independents (who will decide the election) that much more difficult. While I mentioned several posts ago that the VP pick generally does not have much of an impact on the election, it could end up being a pick like Geraldine Ferraro or Dan Quayle, both of which ended up being poor selections.

Her selection pretty much eliminates McCain’s argument of experience against Obama. Sure Palin is running for the No. 2 seat instead of the No. 1 seat, but McCain looks like he will fall over dead any minute (obviously I hope that does not happen), so she could be elevated to the president at almost any second. Going from being the mayor of a town about the size of Corry to the Vice President of the United States in two years is one heck of a jump.

But leading into the Republican convention, while Republicans are outwardly saying this is a great pick, they must be thinking to themselves ‘what just happened and what do we do now?’ Without a doubt they are scrambling to retool their message, because before, they were going to go on the experience issue practically non-stop. However, every time they talk about it (and they will bring it up), it is going to sound hollow and I don’t think a lot of people are going to be buying it. Plus, the Democrats are going to be brining it up almost non-stop between now and November 4 every time the Republicans do.

Overall, the Republicans are going to have their hands full trying to do as well or better than the Democrats did last week. It will be imperative for them to convince the country that Palin is qualified for the job and can lead the country. I have no idea how they are going to do it without looking like hypocrites regarding Obama’s experience, and am not going to try and figure it out. I will watch like the rest of the country and see how it all plays out.