My real first thought here is that I finally heard a little bit of the guy I kind of liked eight years ago.
My second thought: I didn't hear enough of that guy.
This speech was pretty good, but, again it mostly pandered to his base. It was a rehash of 2004 with the emphasis on national security, safety, and who do you trust to be commander in chief. That makes a lot of sense for him. He is a war hero with what most people would consider great national security credentials.
Problem is, this is 2008. That stuff still flies with the base. It rather farther down on the food chain with most of the electorate.
Education is the civil rights issue of this century.
What the heck does that mean? One doesn't anyone in the Republican party get that using weak analogues like this denigrate the original issue? Or maybe they do?
I know some of you have been left behind in the changing economy and it often seems your government hasn't even noticed. Government assistance for unemployed workers was designed for the economy of the 1950s. That's going to change on my watch.
Josh Marshall at TPM seems to think John McCain is calling for the abolition of unemployment insurance with this line. I didn't quite get that here but a) I can see where you might and b) I may not be reading this right. I thought it was a bit more about expanding job retraining, but, given the lack of specifics throughout this speech, how would I know?
They really need to reteach the man to smile. It seems forced every damn time he does it. At then he puts it away real quick. Not an asset on TV.
I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them. I will cut government spending. He will increase it.
My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate them. My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance. His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.
A brief bit of the large swaths of debunked boilerplate that made up the vast majority of this speech. Every one of these points has been debunked as either made up or grossly exaggerated over the last week multiple times.
The Republicans think they have become masters of repeating the lie until it becomes truth. Problem is, they don't repeat enough. Now, George W. Bush, well, if you asked him what he had for breakfast four years ago he would have replied "9/11". He figured out how to work the talking points into every single paragraph he uttered.
The McCain people just aren't as driven with their message. Thus, they will get called on the lie. People will recognize it for a lie. It won't get repeated enough.
Plus, after eight years, people have gotten pretty used to, and sick of, Republican political operatives creating their own reality by repeating whatever it is they want the public to believe over and over until it finally is truth.
I will conceded these points:
John McCain has a great finish to that speech. Classic and will definitely fire up his base.
John McCain will get some kind of bump from that speech. I don't think he catches up to Obama in the next week though.
The 'uniter' McCain is showing up too late to this party. He may even destroy and remaining chance he's got if he tries to do that. I thought things like this were real dangerous for him given how much he's cozied to the right:
Instead of rejecting good ideas because we didn't think of them first, let's use the best ideas from both sides. Instead of fighting over who gets the credit, let's try sharing it. This amazing country can do anything we put our minds to. I will ask Democrats and Independents to serve with me. And my administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability.
The right doesn't care for that stuff. The right wants partisan. That's some dangerous stuff to try to woo back the middle! You might just lose the right along with the middle if you keep that up!
Bottom line: we heard nothing new here. He is a war hero. He deserves our respect and admiration for his service to our country. There were no specifics in this speech. He paid lip service, barely, to helping the middle class. Again, absolutely no specifics.
At least Barack Obama put some numbers on things and had better fleshed out proposals in his speech.
I think he gets a little bump, but they better have some much better specifics ready for the debate or he's in trouble. Obama won't even have to call him on it. The moderators will.
UPDATE: In case you didn't see the speech, and you still want too despite my comments ;-), here is the full video of Senator John S McCain III acceptance speech:
(Note: I orginally posted the official RNC video of the speech. But since UStream, what they use instead of YouTube, likes to behave funny, like play automatically instead of having to be manually started, I have replaced it. I apologize for any annoyance. I will never trust the Republicans to use modern technology again.)
Comments welcome,
Pat McGovern Sphere: Related Content
