One way in which the Palin pick HAS benefited McInsane...

It's such a spectacularly out-of-left-field, WTF? moment that it's totally captured the news cycle, essentially making Obama's brilliant speech last night "old news."

I mean, doesn't it now feel like the Democratic Convention took place weeks ago?

Obama's "landmark" speech, it will turn out, controlled the news cycle for barely thirteen hours, most of them in the late-night/early-morning time frame when most of the nation is asleep. And, since more than half of the daily tracker polling will take place after the selection became known, but too soon for anyone to find out any of Palin's negatives, you will probably see less of a post-speech Obama bounce (or maybe even no bounce at all) than you would if McInsane had chosen someone predictable and familiar like Romney.

Beyond that, long-term, it's hard to see Palin's choice being a positive for McInsane. But it did accomplish one thing -- to stop the Obamamentum from reaching such a peak over the weekend (say, a 15-plus-point lead in tracking polls) that the Republican's electoral debacle would look like a done deal by the time their convention convened. It keeps the campaign going. And it means we're all going to have to work harder to bring about victory in November.