I was with a bunch of friends who are big into politics last night. A few of them were not that enamored with John McCain, which is something I have noticed all year among my politically active friends that I hang around with. However last night, these same people (one who has previously said he would never vote for McCain) is now fully behind the ticket and excited. The pick of Sarah Palin made his day. And watching the news this morning, you can feel the shot in the arm that this pick has generated for Republicans

According to Scott Rasmussen, the American people have a much more favorable opinion of Sarah Palin on the day she was picked to become the next Vice President than they did about Barack Obama’s pick of Joe Biden.

After her debut in Dayton and a rush of media coverage, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 53% now have a favorable opinion of Palin while just 26% offer a less flattering assessment.
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By way of comparison, on the day he was selected as Barack Obama’s running mate, Delaware Senator Joseph Biden was viewed favorably by 43% of voters.

I would also note that this pick seems to have stopped any momentum Barack Obama had after he delivered the greatest speech in the history of the world. After surging ahead by 4% in yesterday’s edition of his tracking poll, Barack Obama holds the same 4% lead today in Rasmussen’s tracking poll. If Obama was getting a bounce, one would have expected a higher lead today….

I didn’t watch much TV yesterday, but from what I have seen this morning, you can almost see the panic oozing out of the screen from the talking heads on pro-Obama cable channels CNN and MSNBC.

Interesting to note that my post last night for Barack Obama’s greatest speech in the history of the world only got 345 comments. The post for the pick of Sarah Palin has received 525 comments as of the time of this post.

To add more anecdotal , the people in office tend to be non-political and rarely talk about politics. There are a few political junkies, about half-and-half as far as Democratic/Republican. But even with that do they rarely even bring up politics. Today, I had four people, none of whom I have ever discussed politics with, come by my office and make a comment about the choice of Sarah Palin by John McCain. Not one of them mentioned last night’s speech by Barack Obama. For what’s it’s worth….

And to see how deranged some on the left have become, here were two comments left by those on the left side of the political spectrum that were left in the comments below.

What I really can’t wait for is the future Playboy pics of Sarah Palin after she’s defeated. I’m sue McCain will get advanced copies.
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Sarah Palin = Dan Quayle. She just has better legs. I wonder if she can spell potato?

Really mature….

Anyway, it is time to announce the winners of The Hedgehog Report Vice Presidential Selection Prediction Contest. We had four people pick Sarah Palin and three people pick Joe Biden, but nobody picked both. Nobody who picked Biden had the right day but we did have two people who picked Sarah Palin on August 29th. Therefore, the co-winners are Tom and HiChris.

Anyway, here is a fresh post for your Friday Night musings….

The news is breaking now – Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin will be the next Vice President of the United States!

There will be more about this later, but one thing that I find humorous is when you think back to all the talk and chatter of VPs being chosen to help in swing states and help bring electoral votes to the ticket. Yet somehow we end up with two vice-presidential nominees that come from states with a combined electoral college vote total of SIX!

CNN, Time and Opinion Research joined together to release a new poll in the four “swing” states of Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. Here are the results.

PRESIDENT – COLORADO (CNN/Time/OR)
John McCain (R) 47%
Barack Obama (D) 46%

PRESIDENT – NEVADA (CNN/Time/OR)
Barack Obama (D) 49%
John McCain (R) 44%

PRESIDENT – NEW MEXICO (CNN/Time/OR)
Barack Obama (D) 53%
John McCain (R) 40%

PRESIDENT – PENNSYLVANIA (CNN/Time/OR)
Barack Obama (D) 48%
John McCain (R) 43%

All these polls were done August 24-26 among 625-670 registered voters in each state. The numbers in New Mexico seem to be wacky. In the past two weeks, we have seen Obama ahead by 13% and 6% in two polls and McCain ahead by 4% in another. How can they all possibly be right?

A new poll from Akron University in Ohio pegs the race at a dead exact tie.

PRESIDENT – OHIO (Akron U)
John McCain (R) 40%
Barack Obama (D) 40%

This poll was done, and I kid you not, between July 17-August 17 among 753 registered voters. Good grief, how useful can a poll be that is spread out over an entire month? Why not two months?

Finally, a pollster that many claim is the top polling company around goes against the grain and is out with a poll showing Barack Obama slightly ahead of John McCain in the state of Florida. The latest numbers from Mason-Dixon.

PRESIDENT – FLORIDA (Mason-Dixon)
Barack Obama (D) 45%
John McCain (R) 44%

This breaks a string of eight straight public polls that had McCain ahead of Obama in Florida. This poll was done August 25-26 among 625 registered voters. The only thing I will say is polling a state during a party convention would seem to give that party’s candidate an advantage. Why didn’t Mason-Dixon do this before the convention or wait until after the GOP convention to do state polling?

That should give you something to chew on heading into tonight….