Here at the Xcel Center the delegates are slowly filing into the hall. The reconfigured stage looks not unlike a fashion show runway. Seated up front, dead center is the Pennsylvania delegation. I spoke to a middle aged woman from the Harrisburg area, wearing a bright red shirt and matching hat. Her face lit up when I asked about the Sarah Palin speech.  She declares, “Who’d have thought we would have someone who can dress a moose?” (I assume this refers to some post-hunting ritual and not clothing.) She leaned forward and told me, “Women don’t always help other women but this time we have to stick together.”

That sentiment may surprise conservative pundits who for years have pooh-poohed identity politics. But feminist pride is real, and indeed a topic of constant conversation for many here. Part of the pride is obviously a delight in defying steteotypes (e.g. Republicans are sexists).

But it is not the only strange thing to come to pass. At a Convention in which Hillary and Bill Clinton, Joe Lieberman and the United Steelworkers Union garner applause anything is possible.