Six and a half minutes of her from today’s stop in Cedarburg, followed by Maverick asking around the seven-minute mark if she isn’t, er, “the most marvelous running mate in the history of this nation.” The shot at Obama comes up front, swinging at a softball tossed yesterday by The One when he stupidly insisted that nobody anticipated the success of the surge. Meanwhile, Gallup’s three-day tracking poll sees a three-point bump for Maverick — and only one of those three days came after Palin’s speech. How much has the CW shifted? Enough that the same two Politico reporters who accused him of being desperate for picking her this weekend are now analyzing how she’s changed the race. Note especially the section on how McCain’s been liberated; like I’ve been saying, Palin isn’t a ploy to the middle, she’s a ploy to anchor the base so that Maverick himself can go after the middle. Case in point.

So suddenly has the momentum shifted that TPM claims Team Barry’s toying with the idea of abandoning its “ignore Palin” strategy and going after McCain over the fact that … Palin’s more gosh-darned popular than he is. Mind you, they were pushing the Eagleton meme two days ago; now, post-speech, they’re ready to argue that the ticket should be flipped. I can’t remotely fathom why they’d want to boost Palin’s credibility by emphasizing the fact of her appeal, unless they’re going for some sort of half-assed “celebrity” meme of their own vis-a-vis McCain. The problem is, the celebrity thing only works against Obama because he’s inexperienced; it’s the fact that people are so excited about a lightweight, not the fact that people are excited at all, that makes him seem ridiculous in those spots. If the Dems try it to McCain, it’s going to come off either like they’re congratulating him for finding such a killer running mate or as a backfiring commentary on why politicians with thin records really don’t deserve such adulation. Cross those fingers.

Exit question: Does the left really want to put its chips on comparing Sarah Palin to Pontius Pilate?