A Big Impression

Rich Lowry at National Review Online, gushed about Sarah Palin's performance in her vice-presidential "debate" with Joe Biden:


A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen. It's one of the keys to the success of, say, a Bill O'Reilly, who comes through the screen and grabs you by the throat. Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.


That may be a common reaction to the governor of Alaska. Other than at an apparently very brief encounter at the Republican Governors Association meeting in 2006, John McCain and Sarah Palin spoke once, the morning of Thursday, August 28, 2008, after which McCain offered Palin the job. Did Palin wink at the Arizona senator and mesmerize him as she did Rich Lowry?