David Holt from the Republican Convention NewsOK.com Blogging Community

This is not a joke.  Al Franken is really the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator from Minnesota.

I won’t lie, after Sarah Palin electrified the Xcel Center and took the nation by storm last night, the acceptance speech of the Presidential nominee, John McCain, seems a little anticlimactic this afternoon. 

But that’s not a bad place for McCain to be, and after what has been a remarkably successful convention, especially after the way this week began, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Senator McCain hits one last homerun tonight.

Tom Cole’s Monday night speech that wasn’t has been revived for tonight’s session.   He’ll go on about 6 p.m. 

And Mary Fallin’s speech will go on as previously planned.  She will speak just before 8 p.m.

The delegation had breakfast one last time together this morning. 

The delegation heard from Mary Fallin, Tom Cole, Frank Lucas and Jim Inhofe.  Senator Inhofe explained what happened to the roll call last night, which resulted in two votes for Ron Paul accidentally not being cast at that time.  As Michael McNutt reports, the Paul voters took that pretty hard. 

The delegation also heard from Lynn Windel and Bunny Chambers, who are serving their final day today as National Committeeman and Committeewoman.  Lynn and Bunny have served the party selflessly for many years.

The delegation is wearing their blue blazers with the Oklahoma patch and khaki pants, no tie.

From breakfast, delegates were off again to various functions around the Twin Cities.

Here’s a pic that Tulsa blogger (and former Delegate) Michael Bates took from the front.

A friend of mine sent me a pic of what the Oklahoma roll call looked like on TV.

Sometime around 11 p.m., National Committeeman Lynn Windel and Senator Jim Inhofe cast Oklahoma’s votes.  They were expected to be 39 for John McCain and 2 for Ron Paul, but ended up being 41 for McCain (more on that in a minute).   Lynn is retiring this week from his position, and Senator Inhofe is Oklahoma’s senior Senator, and he’s up for re-election.

Mick Cornett was standing next to Senator Inhofe and made sure he said “the home of the Oklahoma City Thunder” during the traditional “brag” portion of the vote casting.

The two votes that were expected for Ron Paul were from delegates that had been allocated to Mike Huckabee, and those folks could now legally vote for whoever they wanted.  (See more explanation of delegates here.)

The first time Senator Inhofe got the floor, he passed, as all states at this point were trying to allow Arizona to put McCain over the top.  The second time he got the floor, after McCain had been nominated (noted with “green” confetti on the big screen), Senator Inhofe was mistakenly cut off by the chairwoman, who announced all 41 votes for McCain.   My understanding is that that’s the way it stayed.

Here’s the view from behind Senator Inhofe and company.

And another.

Here’s another pic I took.

She was funny, intelligent, thoughtful, sincere and persuasive.

The audience was beside itself, welcoming her with a 5-minute ovation and following with many more.

Expectations had been sky-high, and Sarah Palin had exceeded them.  The speech was an instant classic, and you could tell just by looking at our faces that those of us in attendance were thinking to ourselves “I’m watching history.”

I spoke to many delegates afterwards.  Almost every conversation was the same:

Me: “What did you think?”

Them: (visible catching of breath)  “Oh my gosh, that was the greatest speech I’ve ever seen.”

Perhaps folks were just caught up in the moment, but it was really, really good.  In five days, Sarah Palin had completed her rise from anonymous governor to rock star, and you knew the political universe would never be the same.