Watching the old dog's new tricks

"He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared."

— Sun Tzu

Forget Barack Obama's rock-star status or the media frenzy that surrounded the Democratic primary contest that kept Hillary Clinton supporters on the edges of their seats for about three months longer than they should have.
The Republican Party is the one with the real energy.
It's the Grand Old Party that's turning heads and hitting hard with the element of surprise.

Let's start with the nominee: Sen. John McCain, who was all but written off after the Iowa caucuses, somehow managed to dispatch up-and-coming conservative heavyweights Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, in large part thanks to one-time frontrunner Rudy Giuliani failing epically by focusing all his attention on Florida and then throwing his support behind McCain at a critical juncture.

Move ahead a few months and Obama is the clear winner in the Democratic primaries. Ever the soldier (as his campaign will have you believe), McCain and the conservative crowd went on the offensive, coming out early and negative against Obama. For a campaign that was over-matched in fundraising versus the Democrats' standard bearer, it was a bold move to spend so much so soon.

Move forward again to Friday, Aug. 28. Fresh on the heal of Obama's primetime speech at Invesco Field, McCain pulls off the biggest surprise of the year (and likely of his political career) in naming Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — runner-up in the Miss Alaska pageant, a former sportscaster and mother to an unmarried, pregnant 17-year-old daughter — as his running mate, only the second time in US history a woman has been on a major-party presidential ticket.

Take a slight step forward to the Republican National Convention, as organizers essentially scrap the first day's schedule in light of Hurricane Gustav in the Gulf Coast region. A day later, Giuliani was removed as keynote speaker for Tuesday's festivities; instead, the evening was turned over to actor Fred Thompson (a former US Senator) and current US Senator Joe Lieberman to rally the gathered throngs for McCain as staged photos of the GOP nominee-in-waiting played on the large video screen behind them like the professionally designed PowerPoint presentation it was. Did Giuliani do something wrong to be bumped? Probably not; he likely just wasn't macho enough to hammer home the evening's message (Which is saying a lot when you consider the alternative is Joementum).

So what's the next surprise in store for the GOP to keep us all guessing and steal the spotlight away from Obama-Biden `08? Some have speculated that Palin will be forced to withdraw from the campaign a la Thomas Eagleton thanks to all the dirt that's been revealed about her family, her governorship and just about anything you can think of that would be potentially harmful to one's political career. This way, McCain enjoys the benefits of having nominated a woman without actually seeing her through the general election. I hate to be crass, but this wouldn't be the first time the senator has committed to a woman and left her for someone else.