I have received a number of emails to the effect of: I'm a conservative, and I can't tell you how fired up and excited I am by Sarah Palin's speech. Finally we have a fresh, new face who will tell it like it is.

Noted. As I wrote just after Palin finished speaking, in the jet-lag blur accompanying the latest 14-hour flight back to Beijing, the speech was effective, funny, and strong in summing up the views of "the base." It would be as if Barack Obama had chosen Al Franken as his running mate -- and Franken had let rip at the convention with the anti-Bush, anti-Republican one-liners he refined in his Air America / "Big Fat Idiot" days.

But, as suggested earlier, there are two problems with this approach, which seem more evident as clips are played and replayed.

First, if this speech energized the Republican base, I bet it did the same -- in opposition -- for the Democratic base. And the Democratic/independent/"had enough!" base is simply larger this year.

Second, I wonder how Palin's mocking, contemptuous tone about Obama will travel and age. It was great inside the hall -- again, think of Al Franken, who would of course have been funnier. But the track record of cocky-sounding newcomer politicians is not so great.