Jonathan Paton is an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention.

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The first Wednesday in September was the night when John McCain began on the road to victory.

There were other moments, to be sure: His resurrection from a political grave because of a marathon of town halls in New Hampshire (twice!), his "tied up at the time" comments in a debate, his wins in Florida and California, but his path to winning this election became inevitable when Sarah Palin took the stage in St. Paul.

The sheer electricity in that hall before her speech was amazing and it had been building all day. Mike Huckabee put it best when he said that the media did what Republicans have not been able to do on their own.

Through their attacks on McCain's surprise pick of Palin as his vice president, the media unwittingly unified the party in a way I have not experienced since Bush's re-election in 2004. The shots at both her and her daughter's pregnancy, the slams against her experience, the digs about small-town America were fresh in the minds of the delegates leading up to her speech.

The more she was attacked, the more the delegates longed to hear her speak. Huckabee and Mitt Romney did well, but it was Rudy Giuliani making his case like the U.S. attorney he once was that built up more suspense than anything.

There was such a tremendous amount of energy in that room, when Palin spoke it was almost a foregone conclusion that it was going to be a good speech. And it was.

Aristotle said that every good argument must appeal to logic and emotion. But he also said that the ethos of the speaker, which he conceived of as the credibility of the speaker and her connection to her audience, is just as important. If that is true, then Palin had an ethos the size of Alaska that truly connected with the people assembled in that hall as well as millions viewing at home.

The media did more than unify the Republican Party last night. The criticism, fair or not, served to drive more than 30 million viewers to Palin's speech. Obviously, some of those folks tuned in to watch her stumble, but they left convinced she is up to the task of doing battle on a national stage.

In all the research the media did on Palin during the last few days, you would have thought they would have tried to figure out why she has an approval rating above 80 percent in her home state (among Democrats in Alaska it is above 75 percent). We found out for ourselves Wednesday night.

Had the media bothered to talk to a Demo-crat in Alaska, they would have learned she is a tough opponent and is not to be underestimated. That sounds a lot like John McCain to me.