Obama camp reacts to Palin’s speech

Pennsylvania.In her first national address, vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin wowed the Republican convention using wit, sarcasm, charm and ridicule.

Obama chief strategist David Axelrod responded by saying that Gov. Sarah Palin is a “skilled politician” who “had an assignment and she went out and she discharged it.”

“She is deft at going on the attack. For someone who makes the point that she is not from Washington, she looks like she would fit in very well there,” Axelrod told reporters on the campaign plane. “These attacks all felt very familiar to Americans who are used to this kind of thing from Washington.”

Axelrod said her speech was riddled with distortions.

“Right down the line,” he said. “She tried to attack Obama by saying he had no significant legislative accomplishments — maybe that’s what she was told — but she should talk to Sen. Lugar, talk to Sen. Coburn, talk to people across the aisle in Illinois where he passed dozens of major laws to expand health care reform welfare, reduce taxes on working families. So I think she had an assignment and she went out and she discharged it.”

Obama “caught a little bit” of the speech last night, he said.

“Sen. Obama has taken the whole thing in stride,” Axelrod said when asked about the dig on Obama’s stint as a community organizer. “I don’t think he expected gingerly treatment for the reasons that I said. He understands they don’t really have a record to run on, and this is what politicians do when they don’t have a record to run on.”