Initial Reaction

Posted on by

I said earlier today:

In order to reach out to persuadable “swing” voters, IMO he [McCain] needs to show he understands peoples’ economic concerns and has some idea what he’s going to do to address them. He needs also to persuade listeners that his administration would not be a copy of George Bush’s. I think some vague noises about “reform” and “change” are not going to do that; he needs to call out specifics.

I don’t believe this speech accomplished that. Right now, as I keyboard, Chris Matthews is saying that McCain’s speech “divorced” McCain from the Bush Administration. But as Rachel Maddow points out, every economic proposal in this speech was no other than George Bush’s economic policy. No difference. It shouldn’t be that hard for the Obama campaign to remarry Bush to McCain. Even if Bush isn’t speaking to McCain after tonight.

If I were someone out-of-work, or worried about losing a job, or without health insurance, or about to lose my house, I don’t believe I would have heard anything in that speech that gave me hope. McCain mentioned those things but offered nothing new to correct the problems.

What’s going on here? I understand movement conservatives believe Republicans lost seats in 2006 because of corruption scandals, out-of-control spending, probably immigration. In their hearts, they don’t believe their “free market,” “privatize everything” policies are the problem.

The delegates, they’re saying, are still more jazzed about Sarah Palin than they are about John McCain. But I don’t think Sarah Palin will turn out to be the magic candidate that will sell the ticket to independents and swing voters, for reasons discussed in the last two posts. This is particularly true if the McCain campaign keeps her hidden away so the press can’t get to her, as reports say they will do.

My question, earlier this evening, was whether McCain would deliver a speech for the delegates or for the nation. What I think happened was that the speech was intended for the nation, but it failed because McCain and his speechwriters don’t know how to talk to the nation.

11 thoughts on “Initial Reaction”

  1. McCain’s show of concern for the people of this country, plus his repeated calls for change rang hollow to me. His party wrecked this country, and he voted for the wrecking 90 % of the time. And so it’s hard for me to believe many outside of the XCel Energy Center believe this guy.

    I will say this for McCain- he’s much more tolerable to listen to than W, whose snotty sense of entitlement and chronic lying turned my stomach from the go. Too bad (for McCain) that his running mate, Sarah Barracuda has stepped into W’s slimey shoes. She’s pretty but I have great difficulty looking at her – I can just feel the contempt oozing out of her.

  4. Moonbat, take heart! CNN did a fact check on Palin’s speech
    first thing this morning and corrected all of the er.. mis-informations.

    ie.. did NOT take on the lobbyists. She hired some and got plenty of pork for her state.

  5. As they do every 4 years, the GOP made it all about biography. They lose on the issues. They know it. They also know they can get away with telling outrageous lies because most voters don’t see the fact checking that comes after the speech, so when an issue comes up, it’s framed in lies.

    The only way this is different from the GWB coronation is that McCain’s biography isn’t 100% phony. They didn’t have to make an male prep school cheerleader into an ersatz cowboy. True, they had to cast a man who wears $500 loafers as a regular guy. They had to gloss over the callous treatment of his starter family and turn him into the Ideal Father and Husband. They had to skip merrily past the corruption and lobbyists and cast a man who has been in DC for decades as a mavericky outsider. But they’ve got the POW story going for them, and they milked every drop out of it.

    But the real story is the narrative they’re weaving about Obama — that he’s not quite American, an elitist, terrorist-coddling snob, etc. Will it work? Could be. There’s a whole lot of stupid out there, as the fact that George W. Bush was almost elected twice demonstrates. It’s gonna be a nail-biter.

  7. My take-away from McCain’s speech:

    There is a clear difference between George W. Bush and John McCain. It’s this:
    McCain was (is still?) a POW.

    Plus, there was something at the end talking about all the things you can do to server your country… I think he wants people to become community organizers? Something like that.

  9. This is amusing:

    http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/5/111829/9917/18/587802

    Synopsis: it wasn’t a “green screen” behind McCain’s head last night; it was the expansive lawn of a mysterious building that resembled, to my eyes, “Sunnydale High” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

    Turns out the building wasn’t the one the Repugs wanted to show– Walter Reed military hospital (so well administered during the last eight years!). In fact, it was Walter Reed Middle School, somewhere in N. Carolina as I recall.

    In illustrating the endless POW story… the Repugs showed the wrong building! Nothing from last night stands up to fact checking!

    Losers losers losers losers losers.

  10. somewhere in N. Carolina as I recall

    Fact-check on myself: the Walter Reed Middle School is in N. Hollywood, CA.

  11. If only they were a little better at “the google”, they might have recognized their mistake.

    LMAO! A bunch of creationist luddites.

Comments are closed.