"I do not doubt that conservative Christian moms all over the country were brought to tears by the power of this. There are a lot of conservative Christian moms."
My wife would fall into the Christian mom category, albeit an apolitical one as opposed to conservative. Palin's speech definitely won her over last night. We replayed the moment where Palin's daughter licked her hand and rubbed the baby's head on our DVR a couple times, to both our delights.
I fall into your "studied skeptic of my gut" category and won't vote for McCain either. But all of this talk of not "properly vetting" Palin doesn't take into account this woman's appeal. This could turn out to be one of the most shrewd moves we've seen in recent politcal memory.