A nifty video snapshot of Palinmania circa September 2008, when McCain finally gave conservatives a reason to start caring about his candidacy. It’s all true — terrific convention speech, feverish grassroots excitement, a better-than-expected performance against Biden in the VP debate. I’m just not sure why SarahPAC felt obliged to put it out. For starters, it ends up being free publicity for the “Game Change” movie. Beyond that, do any of her critics dispute the points being made here? Does anyone, Steve Schmidt included, claim that she did poorly at the convention or that the surge in enthusiasm she generated among the base was phony? Back in 2010, amid accusing her of not knowing much about policy, he specifically said:

In her first major speech at the convention, Palin seemed perfect.

“She gave a great convention speech. And we came out of that convention ahead in the polls,” Schmidt recalled…

Schmidt says she was a quick study. “And her focus was extraordinary. She was working 15, 16 hours a day,” he said. “And we were pleased with the result. We were very pleased with the results.”…

“I believe, had she not been on the ticket, our margin of defeat would’ve been greater than it would’ve been otherwise,” Schmidt said.

Even her archnemesis admits that she helped the ticket on election day, which is the whole thrust of this clip. The fear, I guess, is that the movie will be such a hatchet job that it’ll dwell on the alleged gaps in her policy knowledge without balancing it by showing the excitement for her among conservatives. Could be, but the trailer does include the convention and more than one shot of Republican voters greeting her adoringly. Guess we’ll see.