Saturday night, an estimated 19,000 people turned out to a high-school football field in Dublin, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus, to hear Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Sherrod Brown, Ted Strickland, and the man who had been missing from the Obama Ohio campaign,
John Glenn.
It was about twice the number who had come to hear McCain announce his VP pick in Dayton the day before.
Whoever had crafted Palin's speech on Friday aimed it squarely at an Ohio audience. In many ways it was a local speech, with former Ohio Congressman Rob Portman acting as Master of Ceremonies.
Toward that end, it had been shrewdly noticed that though he had stumped for Hillary in the primary, John Glenn had not yet come out for Obama in public. And so Palin paid homage to Glenn as John McCain's long-time right-stuff colleague and friend, in hopes of splitting off one last but most important PUMA on high.
Those hopes were dashed within thirty hours. On Saturday, Glenn opened with:
"Let me just set straight where I stand (SARAH), I'm happy to be here to endorse the candidacy of Barack Obama and Joe Biden."http://ohiobama.dailykos.com/