Editor's note: Robert Rupp, a political historian at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, W.Va., is providing a daily journal of analysis and happenings from the Republican National Convention.
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Every convention has two audiences - the gathered delegates and the public that needs to be introduced and convinced of the nominee. In a sense, the speakers at a convention have to address both the choir and the congregation.
The first audience is important because close elections can turn into landslides when a portion of a party's base stays home and sits out the election.
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Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, right, is joined by Republican presidential candidate John McCain at the end of her speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday.
The second audience is important because 20 percent of voters make up their minds after the end of both parties' convention.
On Tuesday, Republicans, who already lost a day of their convention because of Hurricane Gustav, dealt with this tension by falling in line behind John McCain with a parade of witnesses that included defeated party rivals and his president.
They also introduced McCain as someone who placed service about self and as a maverick who took independent stands.
Tuesday's speakers included Fred Thompson, who gave not so much a speech as a conversation about McCain. Every candidate has to have a story and every candidate should have Thompson as the storyteller. The former Tennessee senator walked the quiet audience through McCain's remarkable life.
Sen. Joe Lieberman came next. His historic speech marked the first time that someone who ran on the national ticket of one party addressed the convention of the other side. Eight years ago Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for vice president. Now he is endorsing McCain for president.
The closest thing to such a public partisan switch occurred in 1940 when the 1936 Republican vice-presidential nominee, Frank Knox of Illinois, served in Franklin Roosevelt's cabinet as Secretary of the Navy. Knox was the running mate of Alf Landon on a ticket that carried only two states. Lieberman ran with Al Gore and won the popular but not the electoral vote in 2000.
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Lieberman began his speech by asking the question everyone was thinking: "Why is a Democrat like me at the Republican convention like this?"
The answer is to get Democratic votes, to reinforce McCain's ability to work across party lines and also to further his maverick image.
On Wednesday, McCain's vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, introduced herself both to the delegates and to the national audience.
Just as Lieberman's speech will not win over that many Democrats, Palin likely will not bring in many of the 18 million Hillary Clinton voters. However, her candidacy can attract the independent women voters who constitute the swing vote in such key battleground states as Pennsylvania and Michigan. Many have waited 24 years for a woman to be on a national ticket and probably enjoy that Palin's selection has confounded pundits.
In her speech Palin played up not only her identity as a woman, but more important her identity as reformer. The reaction in the hall was positive as the choir enjoyed both the words and symbol of Palin at the podium. How that plays to the congregation in the coming weeks is still to be determined
For despite the enthusiasm and controversy over her appointment, the voters vote for the top of the ticket. And in this regard the burden of victory rests on the ability of John McCain to reach both the choir and the congregation during his acceptance speech today.