A Worried Democrat Recognizes the Palin Threat

Democrat Willie Brown, former Speaker of the California Assembly and Mayor of San Francisco writes today that Democrats have right to be worried about Sarah Palin:

The Democrats are in trouble. Sarah Palin has totally changed the dynamics of this campaign.

Period.

Palin's speech to the GOP National Convention on Wednesday has set it up so that the Republicans are now on offense and Democrats are on defense. And we don't do well on defense.

Suddenly, Palin and John McCain are the mavericks and Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the status quo, in a year when you don't want to be seen as defending the status quo.

From taxes to oil drilling, Democrats are now going to have to start explaining their positions.

Whenever you start having to explain things, you're on defense.

I actually went back and watched Palin's speech a second time. I didn't go to sleep until 1:30 a.m. I had to make sure I got the lines right.

Her timing was exquisite. She didn't linger with applause, but instead launched into line after line of attack, slipping the knives in with every smile and joke.

And she delivered it like she was just BS-ing on the street with the meter maid.

She didn't have to prove she was "of the people." She really is the people.

That's as good an analysis of Palin's impact on the campaign as anything I've read to date, and coming from an old Dem pro like Brown, should be very worrisome for the Obama campaign. Would anybody look at Obama, Biden, or for that matter McCain, and be inclined to describe them in the same way as Brown did in that last sentence?