A key point is being overlooked by people who want to argue that Obama supporters have no standing to challenge Palin's inexperience:  the role of the voters in the primaries. 
 
The -voters- chose Obama to be the nominee of the party.  They took the measure of him as a candidate, with his strengths and his weaknesses (including his relative lack of experience), and decided that the former outweighed the latter.  Voters, of course, did not get to choose his running mate.  That responsibility was entirely on his shoulders, and that authority was entirely his to exercise.  He knew that he had a grave responsibility to choose wisely, and he made a sound choice -- one that balanced the political advantages of choosing a running-mate with the need to ensure good government.

McCain, however, exercised this same power to select his VP in an irresponsible manner.  It says a lot about how he plans to govern the country.  If he becomes President, we can expect to hear more phrases like "Great job, Brownie!"

Palin has no electoral mandate, and hopefully never will. 

We must not let this happen!!!  This plays right into the Republicans "celebrity" theme, and will simply cheapen the entire event.   Rather than looking like Dr. King's speech at the March on Washington, or Kennedy's acceptance address, Will.i.am is going to turn this into a Hollywood mess, providing McCain with plenty of images for his next commercial.

REPORT:  The Emmy-winning "Yes We Can" video that spliced together clips of Barack Obama's New Hampshire primary night speech and set it to music, will be re-created live on stage at Invesco Field in Denver Thursday night before the Illinois senator accepts the Democratic presidential nomination there.
The video, which appeared shortly before Super Tuesday, became an Internet sensation. It was adopted by the Obama campaign, and used often on the trail.
Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am — who produced the celebrity-packed video — will perform Thursday evening, backed by singer John Legend and a full gospel choir.

Last night, Michelle brought down the house. 

Of course, it was a political speech, with every word weighed and calculated.  Nevertheless, what came through was just how real, down-to-earth and NORMAL she is, and the entire Obama family is, especially compared to the McCains -- with all their houses and all their privilege.  

What has attracted many voters to Obama (especially younger voters) is the underlying sense that he is "one of us" - a guy who understands where people are coming from, and who has the ability to relate on a genuine level with all different kinds of people -- as people, and not as means to an end.   That is the content, I think, of the notion of Obama as aiming to create a "post-political" movement, a personal kind of politics, rather than one of constinuencies and categories.

Michelle's speech, and just importantly, her sense of genuineness, highlighted by contrast how McCain is a kind of bubble-boy, one of these politicians (and they exist on both sides of the aisle) who has little real capacity to relate with everyday people -- because he has never related to them as anything other than a means to an end (as military personnel to be commanded or obeyed for the sake of the mission; and later, as voting units necessary to secure his power, rather than as neighbors - for lack of a better word). 

Even his marriage to Cindy seems to have been motivated by a cold calculation:  a "trading up" in order to secure money and a trophy wife, leaving behind the woman who faithfully loved him because she was now damaged goods and wouldn't look good at campaign events -- where the focus should always be on his injuries, his suffering, not hers. 

The fact that the Obamas are the ones seen (for example, by HRC's demographic) as "elite" or "aloof" says more about the continuing power of the racial divide in this country, than it does about any of Obama's supposed failures to connect with voters.  To be sure, Obama can and should do more in this regard (the recent 7 Houses meme and the pick of Biden are good signs). . . but he is fighting against a lot of interference that has nothing to do with his personality or the content of his character, and has everything to do with the color of his skin.  Hopefully, 45 years after Dr. King's speech, we will begin to see that cultural barrier begin to dissolve.