Spoke to a handful of local political analysts about Palin’s speech last night. A couple suggested that, while overall she did very, very well, she was, perhaps, a little to caustic and snide — which is all fine and good among the delegates out in St. Paul. But how would that attitude play among the undecideds and independents? I don’t know. You can find some voter reaction here. Did she lose some of those folks?

“I agree with everybody in the country that she’s a great speaker and she did what she needed to do,” said Dickinson College political analyst Jim Hoefler. “She reassured the Republicans. She’s very charming, has a good personal story. She’s got a lot of gritty, down-to-earth, small-town appeal that plays very well in Republican circles.”

“The downside is, she did more than what she had to do. She started playing the pit bull, the feisty vice president role at a time when she’s still trying to get people to know her,” Hoefler said. “Some of what she had to say came off as a little bit snide. You’d like your VP who nobody knows to have a little bit of a honeymoon there. “

“Yes, part of her mission is to really energize and fire up this base, so you need to be a little bit caustic with them. They love that in the hall. They just ate it up,” Hoefler said. “But to the extent that you go too far with that, you give people in the middle cause for concern. She did the base thing, and mobilized the base in aces. I don’t know if she lost some people in the middle.”

Bonus Palin linkage: AP’s fact check of her speech | Politico: Why the media should apologize