Unlike nearly every speaker from last night, Sen. John McCain started his acceptance speech with an appeal to independents and moderate Democrats. He spoke with a very respectful tone when referring to Sen. Barack Obama and his supporters. It's what he needed to do.
Reinforcing his calmer image were at least two anti-war demonstrators who caused quite a stir in the convention hall. McCain handled it well, creating the opposite effect the protesters wanted: They looked like jackasses, not him.
However, the most striking thing about the speech was the lack of specifics of what he wants to do as president. When Obama was criticized for not talking specifics, he made sure to dedicate a large part of his acceptance speech to specifics. A McCain presidency seems to be mostly about his character and a few tired Republican ideas, such as school choice, cutting foreign aid and the new favorite, "drill, baby, drill."
McCain is much stronger when talking about foreign policy and the military. He's very convincing and reassuring when he talks about hating war and wanting to keep the country safe. It's as if he knows he's been too bellicose on the campaign trail so far.
We've now heard McCain's personal story as a prisoner of war dozens of times in just three days and he included again in his speech. It's truly inspiring. No one would ever doubt that McCain loves his country.
But no matter the content, McCain had serious delivery problems with this speech. Starting with the awful lime green background (that later turned to blue) and continuing through McCain's difficulties reading from the teleprompter, the speech was very disjointed and hard to follow. To top it off, the crowd reaction at the end of the speech seemed forced and staged, almost like delegates were reacting to flashing "applause" signs at the side of the
stage.
Overall, it was a very mediocre performance. I'm not sure it got the job done.
September 4, 2008
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