She neutralized her own vulnerability on inexperience by skewering Obama's admittedly thin background.
And she did it wearing a skirt, which means that her opponents will have to tread carefully instead of aggressively challenging her politics and personal background.
All of which emphasizes the huge mistake Obama made by not naming Hillary Clinton - or another qualified woman, for that matter - as his running mate.
For one thing, the selection of Palin would have been less than historic, with one woman already on the ballot.
Not to mention that, most likely, she wouldn't have been on the ballot in the first place.
McCain picked Palin in a cynical ploy to lure disaffected Clinton supporters, and there wouldn't have been any if Clinton were running for vice president.
But now the male-only Democratic ticket has to treat Palin, a small-town "hockey mom" and mother of five, with kid gloves, or risk being seen as bullies.
Clinton could have dropped her with a knock-out punch, no gloves necessary.
Harvard University's Barbara Kellerman stipulated that no one could have anticipated that McCain would have put a woman like Palin on the ticket, but she agreed with my theory.
"Women are able to, and in fact do, take on women in a way that men are now precluded from doing," said Kellerman, an expert on leadership who holds a chair at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
"The men who did take on Clinton early in the campaign - Chris Matthews or [Mike] Barnicle, the whole MSNBC crowd - have since shut up.
"They shut up in the last stages of Clinton, and they're falling all over themelves now to praise Palin."
Kellerman also cited the example of former U.S. Rep. Rick Lazio, who ran against Clinton for the Senate.
"Lazio attacked her, but in doing so, he brought down the wrath of God on himself," Kellerman said.
