Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee plays the guitar with his band, Capitol Offense, at a party during the RNC-week festivities.

Alyssa Caplan
AC360° Staffer

It’s felt a little quiet at 360° the last couple of days. Not that it’s actually quiet. It’s just that there’s been so much noise the last couple of weeks, comparatively, it seems quiet.

As I sit at my desk, I wonder if, like me, journalists, politicians, and other conventioneers in offices across the country are looking longingly at the business cards they collected over the last couple of weeks, while pulling rogue streamers and pieces of confetti out of their pockets, muttering to themselves, “the party is over.”

The weird thing is, for anyone who worked at the conventions, (or even made a sport out of watching them and history in the making), it certainly wasn’t all fun and games. It was endless days, swollen feet, hoarse voices, looming fears of hurricanes, and weight gains or losses (depending upon stress coping style). I myself wasn’t technically working at the conventions, but used the time off as a sort of summer enrichment project. Some people follow Phish, I spent the last couple of weeks making my way from the DNC in Denver to the RNC in Minneapolis.

So while I figuratively pick the last flecks of glitter out of my hair, my thoughts turn to some of the characters I met along the way, some of the things my eyes saw…

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Delegates look up as the balloons fall after Republican presidential nominee John McCain concluded his speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, Thursday.

Ismael Estrada
AC360° Producer

We have been on quite the adventure tour the past couple of weeks…all to talk with you, the voters, all over the country. What seems like forever ago, we started our travels in Encinitas, CA where we watched the DNC with some senior citizens.

We moved on to Arizona to talk with Latinos and on to Louisiana to talk with young professionals. It was a mad scurry to a sporting goods store to pick up rain gear when we stopped for a few days in New Orleans to get nice and wet while covering Hurricane Gustav.

We then we packed up the cars and drove to Florida to kick back up our voter tours. It was in Pensacola that we talked with conservative evangelical Christians and hopped another flight up to Virginia to talk with women.

It’s been fun talking with voters to get a real sense of what our country’s voters are thinking. We chatted with so many great people while watching the conventions and dining over everything from fish tacos to gumbo to burgers.

We watched reactions to Obama’s acceptance speech, to the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin and McCain’s performance last night. The opinions were very interesting, some very passionate, many still undecided.

We are now sitting in a hotel putting together our stories on how evangelical Christians and women reacted to the conventions which you will see tonight.

Roland S. Martin | Bio
AC360° Contributor
CNN Political Analyst

The Republicans have made it clear where their focus is this week with their convention slogan, “Country First.”

With the abundance of flags, chants of “U.S.A., U.S.A.” and tributes to those in the military, they have been laying it on thick.

Sen. John McCain has often talked about the need for Americans to dedicate themselves to service, namely military, and he is on the money.

But a line of attack that was used consistently by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and later by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, tried to call into question whether community organizers put their country first.

Palin focused on the issue, mainly to criticize the Obama campaign for offering up his community organizing work opposite her experience as mayor.

But when you examine Giuliani’s dismissive tone — and the subsequent laughter by the Republicans in the XCel Energy Center — regarding the community organizer jabs, the Democrats could have an opening.

After praising Palin’s speech, I said as much, and that they can expect the Obama-Biden camp to seize on that point. This morning, I read an e-mail from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, who incorporated the community organizer argument into a fundraising appeal.

Republican operatives I talked to said the lines were brilliant and that community organizers don’t play to the GOP’s strength.

I disagree. And so do the many folks who have sent me angry e-mails. They include white Republicans, black Democrats, people from Small Town, U.S.A., and Big City, America.

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Joe Johns | BIO
CNN CorrespondentFederal prosecutors today released details of what they called a plan by a 23 year old man to set off bombs to coincide with the Republican National Convention.

Matthew DePalma of Flint, Michigan is the suspect.

He is charged with possessing Molotov cocktails. The criminal complaint also alleges that DePalma in July 2008 (at something called the Crimethinc Convergence, which looks vaguely on-line like an Anarchists’ Convention), told an FBI confidential source that he wanted to travel to the RNC to “make some bombs” and “blow sh*t up.”

Later in August, the affidavit says DePalma now begin recorded on FBI audio and video, told the source that he wanted to build a chemical bomb to cause a power outage at the RNC.

He also expressed his interest in Molotov cocktails. The source apparently went with the defendant to buy gasoline and diesel fuel, and witnessed the suspect creating a “flammable gelatin” for Molotov cocktails.

Still the document indicated that the defendant indicated a power outage at the convention hall was his main purpose. He was locked up August 30th.

Not clear how far he got on the main plan. The complaint said there was cause to believe he had five Molotov cocktails in his possession when it was filed.

Joe Klein
AC360° Contributor
TIME columnist

As I predicted earlier yesterday, Sarah Palin did just fine.

In fact, she delivered a brilliant speech. It was a classic Republican speech–written by Matthew Scully of the Bush speechwriting shop–chock full of conservative populism, a cultural “torpedo” as Chris Mathews is saying as I write this, aimed directly at Barack and Michelle Obama. She was far more effective, using fewer words than the over-the-top Rudy Giuliani, in tearing down the Obama candidacy. There was not much substance–issues don’t matter, remember?–and her description of Obama’s policies, particularly his tax policies, was quite inaccurate.

But that hardly matters. Palin established herself as a major-league performer, a very effective messenger for the perennial Republican themes of low taxes and strong defense. And a new theme–government reform–that changes the terrain of the election and will have to be forcefully countered by the Democrats. Obama will have to be every bit as sharp–and down to earth–as he was in his speech last week as this goes forward.

Last week, when Bill Clinton began to speak, I thought: this turns this lugubrious convention around. I thought the same as Palin spoke tonight. John McCain, not nearly the speaker that Palin seems to be, has a tough act to follow tomorrow night.

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Police fire tear gas after some protesters said they would breach a security fence.

Editor’s Note: St. Paul police fired chemical agents and projectiles into a large crowd of protesters outside the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night. Witnesses said the protesters marched from the grounds of the state Capitol after a concert there ended abruptly. CNN’s Joe Johns was covering the standoff last night when the protest changed directions. We share his observations here:

Joe Johns | BIO
CNN Correspondent

I was about to hit the ’send’ button on this, telling you how this was a peaceful standoff when the police set off a some type of tear gas that made your throat burn and eyes water.

It didn’t incapacitate me like old fashioned tear gas. Guessing the strong winds made its effects less potent.

Police say they released the gas because they were trying to scatter protesters who they said were trying to get past security fences into the convention’s perimeter. Here is what i was about to send before the gas was set off. Amazing to see what a difference a few minutes makes:
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Cate Vojdik
AC360° Writer

The Republican National Convention is getting into full swing tonight, a day later than planned, thanks to Hurricane Gustav. The trick will be to fit all the planned speakers into the shortened timeframe. Among the GOP headliners we’ll hear from tonight: Sen. Joe Lieberman, former Sen. Fred Thompson, First Lady Laura Bush …and President Bush.

President Bush will make his comments live via remote from the White House. That’s about 1,000 miles from St. Paul in case you were wondering. Bush was supposed to give his speech live in St. Paul yesterday but backed out as Gustav hurtled toward the Gulf Coast. Today, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said it was a “mutual decision” that Bush would address the convention by remote instead of in person. A new national poll hints at what may have fueled that mutual decision. In the CNN/Opinion Research poll, only one in three Americans approve of the job Bush is doing. A quarter of those polled say Bush is the worst president in U.S. history, and six in ten have an unfavorable view of him personally. Ouch. And here’s what’s most troubling for the McCain campaign: A majority of those polled say that McCain’s policies would be the same as Bush’s, a number that has risen slightly since the Democratic convention ended.

The prevailing wisdom is that John McCain’s biggest task in St. Paul is to distance himself from Bush – and his policies. The big wild card is whether McCain’s surprising choice for a running mate will help or hurt him in this respect. McCain’s staffers spent much of the day responding to questions about how thoroughly Sarah Palin was vetted before she was tagged as veep. Their answer: very. But considering Palin’s pregnant teenage daughter and the so-called trooper-gate investigation that Palin’s facing back in her home state of Alaska, not everyone was swallowing that answer.

But back to the task at hand for the McCain campaign. The speakers you’ll hear tonight will talk about what makes him the right choice for president and why he’s his own man. They’ll talk about McCain the maverick, the former POW, the public servant. We’ll hear more about his adopted daughter, Bridget. It’s all part of the convention’s overarching theme: service above self. That’s the plan in broad brush strokes.

What do you think it will take to convince voters like those in the new CNN poll that McCain will chart a new and better course as president if elected? We’d love to hear from you. And stay with CNN for our special live coverage of the RNC in St. Paul.

Here’s tonight’s lineup:
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