KEY POINTS:
Asking anyone in the hastily renamed "Palindome" whether Alaskan Governor's grip on the Republicans' number two slot was tenuous was an invitation to be regarded as an alien.
The idea that Sarah Palin might be ditched from the ticket was greeted with blank-faced befuddlement.
"This is chess," insisted
a fired-up Brendan O'Brian, a delegate from New Hampshire, who is just 19.
"When you make a move, you don't pull it back."
Retreat was not on the cards, as ushers set about distributing hand-written placards proclaiming "Palin Power".
There was some awareness that the Alaskan Governor's ride into town has been a tad hazardous, though few were aware of reports about to break from The National Enquirer placing Ms Palin in a romantic setting with anther man or, indeed, of the campaign's near-nuclear efforts to knock it down.
Nothing was been left to chance last night.
A pitch-perfect speech had been crafted for Ms Palin, unless you were a supporter of Barack Obama, in which case it was pitch awful.
Meanwhile, all of us in the hall were, it turns out, just supporting actors for the television show that's called "We Heart Palin".
She may have been cast by her critics as ill equipped for the national stage let alone a global one.
But from the side of the stage, you can see how the Governor fairly leant into podium, her legs tensing up and down on the soles of her shoes.
She was a beauty queen once and she has not forgotten how to bask in the glow of the crowd.
The New Hampshire folks were hard up against the stage, to the left of the rather larger delegation from Georgia.
A few of us without chairs were squished in a red-carpeted gangway in between.
Welcome back to kindergarten.
Our teacher for the night was a burly gentleman with a red McCain baseball cap and curly earpiece.
A look around revealed that he was one of many similarly be-capped stewards in the hall.
"Please get down, please get down," our coach demanded, gesticulating madly with his cap.
We obediently squatted like kids in short trousers.
"You can stand up for Sarah."
No sooner had he said it, than Ms Palin emerged onto the stage and our coach went berserk.
Up, up, up.
Whistle, whistle.
Republican delegates cannot be trusted to react properly; they need help.
Occasionally, we were plunged into Christmas |pantomime.
Palin touched on Obama's alleged lack of executive experience and coach smiled encouragingly as we chanted "zero, zero, zero".
She evoked Mr Obama wanting to negotiate with foreign tyrants and we broke out into repeated "Ooohs" as if Judy has pulled down Punch's pants.
On the other hand, there are some members of the Georgia delegation who, in their excitement, can't quite stick to the script, especially Steve Dillard of Macon, whose every square inch fairly quivers with Palin amorousness.
"Atta Girl," he yelped.
"I love you Sarah. That's right, we're going to win." He particularly liked calling her "Sara-cuda".
It must have been annoying for Jeff, sitting right behind, who eventually rose to his feet and issued one comment on the proceedings: "She does look good in heels."
When Ms Palin luxuriated in nasty paragraphs on the Washington elite and the media and reporters everywhere, our coach did not actually direct our gaze to where most of the correspondents were sitting - just to our right - but he did not discourage anyone from booing a little and pointing fingers.
Candy Crowley of CNN had the look of someone chained to mediaeval stocks for public humiliation.
If it suits the McCain camp now to cast reporters as the enemy, then that is what it will do.
And if the purpose of the night had been to present a Palin perfectly poised to do battle against Obama, they pulled it off.
She was flub-free - you have to love the teleprompter script of her speech with the word "nuclear" written out as "NEW-CLEAR" in case she did a Bush and mangled it - and in this hall she was hotter than a firework box in Hades.
They just have to hope she burned as bright in homes across America.
- INDEPENDENT
