Obama made a gaff, by exposing himself as a socialist with the whole 'Joe Plumber' incident and the left media is making it even worse for him by digging into Joe's past more then they ever cared to dig into Obama's. I don't think this is in the bag yet for the Democrats.

About Palen, I think that's the only thing he got holding his conservative vote. Most of his campaign he's been pandering to independents so picking someone who's a hardcore conservative energized the crowd on the right, and POed the Hillary crowd, after all it was their destiny to put a woman in a White House and by choosing Palen, McCain now appears to be the 'ring bearer' for women rights.