An astute analysis by Nate Silver

[nsd]

Cognitive Dissonance

Virtually all of the conservative commentariat, and a greater-than-would-care-to-admit-it share of the liberal commentariat think that Sarah Palin hit a home run tonight. I guess I'm just going to have to stick my neck out (along with Josh Marshall) and disagree.

You can tar-and-feather me with this later if I'm wrong. I will make this disclaimer: I'm not necessarily offering a prediction about how the polls are going to move over the next several days. Almost all conventions produce bounces, and this one probably will too (though whether it comes from Palin's speech rather than McCain's, or Fred Thompson's or Rudy Giuliani's, we probably won't be able to tell). But I don't think the speech will be effective beyond the very near term (the next 3-7 days) at moving votes in McCain's direction, if it moves them at all. And here's why:

I think some of you are underestimating the percentage of voters for whom Sarah Palin lacks the standing to make this critique of Barack Obama. To many voters, she is either entirely unknown, or is known as an US Weekly caricature of a woman who eats mooseburgers and has a pregnant daughter. To change someone's opinion, you have to do one of two things. Either, you have to be a trusted voice of authority, or you have to persuade them. Palin is not a trusted voice of authority -- she's much too new. But neither was this a persuasive speech. It was staccato, insistent, a little corny. It preached to the proverbial choir. It was also, as one of my commentors astutely noted, a speech written by a man and for a man, but delivered by a woman, which produces a certain amount of cognitive dissonance.

In exceedingly plain English, I think there's a pretty big "who the fuck does she think she is?" factor.

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[mod mom]

1. 538 is one of my regular haunts. rec'd

[nsd]

2. Kicking, because I really like this analysis.

Fivethirtyeight.com is a great website.