Throughout this cycle the timing of events has seemed as peculiar as the circumstances.  There seemed to be an anxious atmosphere, a feeling of frantic hastening jacked up on uncertainty.  I know how vague this sounds, but I sensed a subtle, strange timing undercurrent which has been hard to define.  Today I realized a component of this sense while reading Hendrik Hertzberg's post, Timing is Everything:

If the order of this year’s Conventions had been reversed, we would now be looking at a very different set of story lines. The final, reverberating impression left by the Conventions would not have been Sarah Palin’s everygal charm but Barack Obama’s stirring specifics delivered to a cheering throng of eighty thousand under the lights. The TV commentaries, once the Conventions were over, would have found time to contrast the Republicans’ relentless negativity to the positive tone struck by the Democrats.

   Honestly, I hadn't even considered that alternative.  The cacophony from our fine outlets during Palinpalooza drowned out my reason; I actually thought that she legitimately garnered all that focus all by her lonesome.  Someone so new, so exciting, so - dare I say - daring!  She was absolutely unknown and the press would hastily vet her with much fanfare.
   But this process took time and time was what the GOP had.  By merit of their party's incumbency, their convention came second and allowed them to call dibs on the echo chamber.  Meanwhile the acceleration coil of time was winding more tightly toward its conclusion, amping up the drama of what was already a full blast affair.  Hertzberg again:

“History shows that a five-point convention bounce has been typical, no matter the particulars of the convention in terms of political party and incumbency/convention order,” an analyst for the Gallup organization wrote last month, using data from 1964 to 2004. But this year, history is bunk. A Convention bounce needs time to develop. No time, no bounce. Obama got neither. McCain got both.

      Unobstructed media space and time were critical ingredients for McCain's bounce to arch high and hold.  And considering the context more carefully in retrospect, I'd have expected McCain/Palin's to have been loftier and held longer. Though I have my doubts that they will have another high point the likes of their convention and the immediate time corridor thereafter. 

Time will tell.