Ms. Palin's Performance Wednesday at the RNC

The Republicans ran more effective campaigns in 2000 and 2004. They are adept at campaigning, and despite awareness of the tactics, adopting Rove's guidelines remains an effective, albeit eristic, tool for them.

But Palin's performance was merely the exectution and staging of a speech she didn't write. The GOP had a VP acceptance speech prepared, as you've probably heard/read elsewhere, but determined it was too macho and determined they had to start over from scratch on short notice when Palin was named.

So while the defense is well-orchestrated - and one would expect nothing less - the fact is it leaves most if not all of the real questions not merely unanswered, but unaddressed. None of the words were Palin's choice: the content reflects nothing but GOP talking points, and while Ms. Palin delivered them creditably she adopted the role of a talking head, revealing to neither the media nor the voters anything beyond her ability to handle somebody else's prepared rhetoric.

Credit the speech writers for what substance there was, although the AP questions the veracity of many points. But make no mistake:

That wasn't "Palin's speech" at all; Sarah Palin was delivering a well-scripted performance. It concealed her by cloaking her in familiar old-school GOP platitudes and rhetorical barbs, many of which such as the tax refrain have been debunked and disproven already. But the GOP has seldom lost relying on time-tested Rovian tactics and lies, have they?

United we stand? Divided we fall?

Has Clinton insulted less-educated voters?

Senator Clinton has recently suggested, for example, that other journalists refer to an Associated Press story including, “how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.” Most of those ‘uneducated’ white voters are capable of hearing the underlying text, and being insulted at the implication that their support is linked to their educational level in a sort of class-based oppression that’s familiar to them, but not welcome.

Visit any Union hall, or construction site, and you will find that most know who among their “peers” is conversant with the subtleties of any major issue, that there are on-site pundits without college degrees who garner more respect than most of the talking heads and media experts. No, not everybody agrees with these "not college educated" backroom philosophers and professors, the differences are present, but that’s just the point: differences ARE present, and Senator Clinton arrogantly lumped all of these people together as though individually they don't matter - as though none will notice.

There could hardly be a more fundamental difference between the presidential candidates, as demonstrated by campaign strategies: The Rove tactical toolset and playbook, targeting specific groups to shave a few points in carefully selected spots vs. the Obama vision of "strength through unity" trusting savvy voters to act for the common good.

Barack Obama’s vision of a country increasingly united can be likened to the recognition that while copper is a soft metal which can become brittle, and zinc is also brittle, mixing them yields: brass -- which is stronger than either separately. He trusts the voters to think, to act for the good of the whole, to resist divisive assaults on our freedoms, to respond in ways that resonate with patriotism that once rallied the nation to put a man on the moon.

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