It turns out that the Republican enthusiasm for Sarah Palin is just as superficial as she is. They were so eager for someone to cheer for (because they really don’t like John McCain) that they dove face first into the Palin mirage. But, on the issues, even they worry about her.

Senator McCain argues that he will magically morph into a powerful change agent. But in his 26 years in Washington, McCain was better at lecturing about reform than leading a reform movement. Republican corruption and governmental dysfunction only grew. So did McCain’s cynical flip-flops on the most destructive policies of President Bush.

Normally, in a democracy, the way you reform a party is by tossing it out of power until it learns its lesson and gets its act together. But the McCain-Palin plan is to reform Republicanism by keeping Republicans in control of the White House and most of the powerful posts in the federal government. That’ll show them.

The Obama campaign had prepared lines of attack directed at the two men thought to be the most likely Republican vice-presidential picks — former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota — but had not considered Ms. Palin a likely enough choice to do the same for her.

For weeks, Senator McCain had wanted to name independent Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut as his running mate. But the outrage from Christian conservatives over the possibility that the Republican ticket would be filled out with a supporter of abortion rights became too intense to be ignored.

As intense as the anticipation over Barack Obama’s choice is, it pales next to the hubbub over whether John McCain is going to tap Joe Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s running mate in 2000. This would give Lieberman a unique niche in American history — one politician who was the vice-presidential nominee for both parties. We would speak of it with awe, like that story about the two-headed turtle in Brooklyn.