Dick Morris on Palin

Sarah Palin, barring an unlikely bad performance tonight, was a great pick for John McCain. Dick Morris explains why.

Understand: Palin is under attack because she was such a good choice.
Remember the Democrats' central charge on McCain - "He's a Bush clone." By choosing Palin, something George Bush would never have done, McCain showed how really different he is.

In other words, Palin tells a story about John McCain in a way that's more vivid than if McCain tried to tell the same story about himself.

The old ground rule for picking a running mate was to help the ticket carry a particular state. But Bill Clinton changed the rules when he tapped Al Gore in 1992. Clinton likely would've carried Tennessee anyway, but the choice of Gore emphasized the most important feature of Clinton's candidacy: He was from a new generation and represented a new outlook.

That's the magic of Sarah - McCain went from feeling a bit old and traditional to looking like the change candidate that he is. With his pick, Obama violated his change brand by turning to a 35 year Washington insider.

And so Sarah Palin reinforces the most important aspect of the McCain candidacy: Despite 30 years in Washington, he's an outsider and a dedicated foe of corruption and conflict of interest in government. He's the one who stands up against pork, earmarks and lobbyists and backs campaign-finance reform.

As McCain devalues Barack's change brand, he will also seek to remind people that, as Fred Thompson put it last night, there's never been anyone less experienced in the position that Barack Obama finds himself in now.