John McCain has confirmed that his running mate for the presidential campaign is popular young Alaska governor Sarah Palin. NBC has confirmed that the 44-year-old staunch conservative, who is pro-life and pro–gun rights, will be announced shortly in Dayton, Ohio. Palin has very high approval ratings in her state and describes herself, like John McCain, as a "maverick." She'll likely be embraced by the conservative base, but the Obama campaign has got to be rubbing their hands at the moment. She's the same age as Barack and has two years less experience on a national level, which will deflate the McCain campaign's arguments that Obama himself is too green to be elected. Plus, in the vice-presidential debate, she'll have to face off with Joe Biden, who has been working on foreign policy in the Senate nearly as long as she's been alive. Conservative pundit Pat Buchanan has already called it the "greatest political gamble he's ever seen." This is about to get exciting!
MCCAIN PICKS PALIN FOR VP [NBC]

I promised you euphoria and that's what you're going to get from me. This was the third best day of my life, after my wedding and my daughter's bat mitzvah. I am full of joy and expectation, and delirious at the prospect of this man being president of the United States, of Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream finally being realized.

After Wednesday night's seating debacle I arrived at Invesco Field early and staked out some prime floor real estate. The first couple of hours were sort of typical of what we've gotten used to — a lot of change and hope and yes we can. We cheered, and waved our American flags, and took pictures of ourselves with the lady with the funny hat. (Oh wait. That was me.) I spent much of the first couple of hours alternating between my seat with the delegation and another one (oh, what a bounty of riches) next to my husband and the difference between the two locations was striking. On the floor, even when we found ourselves a little bored, we still took up chants and danced to the music and greeted one another with the kind of hysterical benevolence usually reserved for a Phish concert. Up on the "special guest" level (no "honored" this time) people weren't dancing in the aisles. They sat in their chairs, half of them hunched over their BlackBerrys. They clapped, sure, but for the first couple of hours they were pretty stiff. Later on, however, they managed a series of downright stupendous stadium-wide waves.

Pretty much everyone agrees: Barack Obama's acceptance speech last night was a historic moment. Most people would also probably agree that the 84,000 people cheering him on were a sight to behold. Beyond that, there's less to agree on. It should be expected that a political speech of this magnitude would divide the political commentariat on the basis of their ideology. We've ordered, roughly, our pundits' reactions from the most glowing to the harshest.

Hurricane Gustav has GOP planners so concerned that they've considered delaying the start of the Republican National Convention next week, reports the Washington Post. The concern is serious enough that the White House is considering canceling George Bush's opening speech on Monday. Gustav, which formed at the beginning of this week as a category-1 hurricane, could potentially grow to category 3 and has already killed 23 people in the Caribbean. It's estimated it will hit the Gulf Coast early next week. From the Post:

For Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain, Gustav threatens to provide an untimely reminder of Hurricane Katrina. A new major storm along the Gulf Coast would renew memories of one of the low points of the Bush administration, while pulling public attention away from McCain's formal coronation as the GOP presidential nominee. Senior Republicans said images of political celebration in the Twin Cities while thousands of Americans flee a hurricane could be dubious.

And Republicans are the ones who always say they have God on their side.

GOP Considers Delaying Convention [WP]

Often when Mayor Bloomberg himself is cryptic about his own plans, the best way to figure out what he is thinking is to survey what his key advisers are saying. In January of this year, for example, Hizzoner was denying that he wanted to run for president as a third-party candidate, but his deputy mayor Kevin Sheekey was quietly working hard to prepare for just that. Now, when there is more and more buzz that Bloomberg is interested in seeking a third term as mayor, the viewpoints of his aides are just as telling. The Times reports that Deputy Mayors Ed Skyler, Patricia Harris, and Sheekey himself have privately expressed that they oppose changing term-limit rules to accommodate Bloomberg's wishes. (Don't you hate it when things you "privately express" end up on the cover of the "Metro" Section?) From the report:

They fear that a third term could produce unexpected crises that might tarnish Mr. Bloomberg’s strong record, the fate of Mayor Edward I. Koch’s administration. They are also concerned that the mayor’s staff members, who are famously loyal to their boss, could grow wary of four more years of 12-hour-day, corporate-style governance and leave for jobs elsewhere.

Wait — don't they know there aren't any jobs out there? These people might just be the only workers in New York City arguing themselves out of employment.

Top Bloomberg Deputies Are Said to Oppose Any Plan to Seek a Third Term [NYT]
Earlier: Paterson: A Third Bloomberg Term Is ‘a Great Idea’
Mayoral Hopefuls Getting Uneasy About Bloomberg’s Third-Term Talk
Related: Bloomberg's Enabler [NYM]

Everyone expected Barack Obama to give a hell of a speech on Thursday night — even his Republican critics, who have tried so hard to turn his eloquence against him. The question was not whether Obama would be stirring, poised, roof-raising. Of course he would. He always is. The question was whether he would be effective. Would he make the case for himself and against John McCain in terms more concrete, compelling, and thematically coherent than he has in the past few months? Would he pull together the threads of a Democratic convention that had offered sterling moments but still somehow been less than the sum of its parts? And, most of all, would he come across as a plausible president of the United States?

Here's the view from the cheap seats at Invesco Field, which is beginning to fill up for Obama's speech tonight.

The only activity left at the DNC is jockeying for tickets to Obama's big speech and the big Google/Vanity Fair party that will serve as the last, and greatest, party of the week. Tickets to Invesco were distributed via an online sign-up, mostly to campaign volunteers; the only way to snag one now is to play off political connections.

The Vanity Fair party, naturally, is less democratic. There are currently huge lines on the second floor of the Ritz-Carlton to pick up tickets; we saw new Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli sprinting up the stairs to retrieve his.

The line is no doubt prompted by the e-mail that went out last night at 12:14 a.m., explaining that anyone who had not already received a confirmation e-mail with instructions on ticket retrieval — invitees were supposed to grab their precious pass on Tuesday — would not be getting in. No exceptions!

We happened to glance at the guest list yesterday and saw it was covered in Sharpie marks, with virtually every guest's wife crossed off. So last night's e-mail was akin to a surprise dis-invitation. No apologies. No explanation. Just the crushing and infuriating realization, as one person who'd been with several dis-invitees when the e-mail came through said, that someone, somewhere, had decided that "you're not cool enough to make the cut."

It was dog-eat-dog on the floor of the Pepsi Center last night. With both Biden and President Clinton speaking, no one chose to stay behind knocking back cocktails at a watch party. The place was mobbed. I was late arriving on the floor, but rather then get into a wrestling match with the daughter of the son of a friend of a congressman or the husband of the sister of a state rep, I decided to head up to the cheap seats. I watched the speeches perched on my husband's lap, sitting next to the utterly delightful wife of Representative John Spratt, one of South Carolina's two Democratic congressmen and an early Obama supporter.

Time magazine reporters James Carney and Michael Sherer recently noticed just how buttoned-up the usually chatty and open John McCain has become. He's much more tight-lipped and less accessible under new strict campaign guidelines. So, when they got the chance to interview him, Carney and Sherer naturally asked him about it. And in doing so, they found the old feisty McCain, boiling quietly underneath his carefully scripted, on-message exterior. From the interview:

There's a theme that recurs in your books and your speeches, both about putting country first but also about honor. I wonder if you could define honor for us?
Read it in my books.
I've read your books.
No, I'm not going to define it.
But honor in politics?
I defined it in five books. Read my books.