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.

I hate these schmaltzy videos. Volume off.

OMG, you mean McCain was a POW? Wow. Who knew?

I realized tonight that I am older than Cindy McCain. Depressing. I skipped her speech because I was watching the replay of last night’s Project Runway. How was it?

Note to self — when I’m old and gray, no double strands of pearls. Ever. They make you look like Barbara Bush.

Did you know McCain was a POW? They should talk about this more often.

The Dems had more flags. The GOP has more White People.

OOO, somebody has a “McCain votes against vets” sign.

He’s praising Bush for keeping us safe from terriers.

Mama McCain looks amazing for 96.

Somebody poke me when McCain says something substantive.

What’s going on in the audience?

“Please don’t be diverted by the ground noise and the static.” Please don’t be distracted by somebody exercising her first amendment rights.

What’s with the “USA USA” chanting?

Again, somebody poke me when McCain says something substantive.

I believe that if McCain announced he could pick his own nose, the delegates would give him a standing ovation.

He fought lobbyists who stole from Indian tribes? He fought Abramoff and Ralph Reed?

Lots of vacant bleachers in that hall.

How could withdrawal from Iraq have “risked a wider war”?

Has he said anything substantive yet?

Gawd, I’m bored.

Oh, he says he doesn’t believe in government that makes choices for us. Unless you’re pregnant.

McCain: Lie lie lie lie lie lie lie.

McCain: My plan is better. Trust me. Don’t bother yourself about the details.

He still hasn’t said anything substantive. Oh, he’s going to send people to community colleges for re-training. For WHAT?

The re-education thing is a crock. No point re-educating people for jobs that don’t exist.

He’s supporting school vouchers? That’s so last year.

McCain, in a nutshell: When I’m president, everybody gets a pony.

Has he said anything substantive yet?

Republicans wear more stupid hats than Dems do.

He used to be a POW!

Audience: Drunk or bored. No middle ground.

He used the word change.

The constant partisan rancor … that the GOP thrives on.

McCain: I’m better than Obama. Trust me.

Gawd, this is an awful speech.

BooMan has a response.

I had no idea he used to be a POW.

This is a dreadful speech. It’s not just the delivery, which is clunky. The speech itself is bad.

I will never forgive the North Vietnamese for this. I hope they’re watching.

Oh, please, make it stop.

History has anointed him to save the country in its hour of need? Is that what he just said?

Some moran is holding up a sign saying “mavrick.”

Oh, we’re saved. He’s done.

Did he say anything substantive?

My instant analysis — he spoke of many economic problems, but he didn’t speak to them, or provide anything resembling plans for solving them.

Josh Marshall: “I question the wisdom of not letting anyone in the auditorium under 50.”

Ron Beasley: “John McCain and the Republicans had better hope that most people were watching the football game.”

The bobbleheads are asking if the speech worked outside the hall. I don’t think it did. It was boring and content-free.

There was a list of vague objectives — jobs, cheaper energy, health care — no indication he has half a clue how to do these things.

The town I grew up in had, as I recall, a population of about 4,500. Since I moved away it has merged with three other nearby towns to form a municipality of 7,861, spread out over 20 square miles. When I was growing up the nearest city, St. Louis, was at least an hour and a half away by car. The school districts of the four towns merged back in the 1960s, which caused my graduating class to jump from maybe 20 kids to (I’m going from hazy memory here) about 80. Yee-haw.

I bring this up to establish my small-town cred. Now, my impression of Sarah Palin:

There’s someone like her in every small town — the alpha female who organizes all the bake sales and parades and Pancake Day and around whom the town’s society, if you want to call it that, swirls. Other women defer to her because she’s more energetic and assertive than they, and she’s probably very good at organizing the bake sales and parades and Pancake Day. They probably admire her for that.

But they don’t necessarily like her.

Watching Palin last night, especially when the family — including the pregnant daughter and boyfriend — joined her on the stage, made me wonder if small-town women would love her, as the GOP hopes, or whether she would remind them of that pushy Sally Ledbetter whom they’ve wanted secretly to tell off since high school. I think it could go either way.

The unmarried pregnant daughter factor probably doesn’t shock too many people. In small, isolated, conservative towns, pregnant teenagers are as constant as sun and rain. But it does make Palin seem no-larger-than-life. Meaning, she’s no Hillary Clinton.

Palin has lived her life as a big fish in a small pond. Now she’s in the ocean, where there are other fish a whole hell of a lot bigger than she is. She may not have realized this yet. She’s going to be on an interesting learning curve the next couple of months.

What struck me about last night’s speech was a lack of the Vision Thing. She didn’t talk about America as much as she talked about herself and John McCain, with some cheap digs at Obama. To connect with voters she presented herself as someone you might run into at the Rotary Club picnic. What I didn’t hear was that she had a clue about the real kitchen-table concerns of the people on the other side of the television screen.

She used the words “change” and “reform” a lot, but for the life of me I can’t tell what changes in Washington she wants to make. It sounded more like the same old wingnut shit. Cut taxes. Cut more taxes. Cut essential services. Cut taxes again. Promise “small government,” whatever they mean by that. They’ve been promising small government for at least 30 years, and it ain’t getting smaller.

I think Americans are in the mood for a government that can actually do something other than start wars. And I think small-town Americans realize that being chief executive of the United States is a lot more difficult than organizing Pancake Day.

Eve Fairbanks writes at TNR:

That’s the problem with the positive case Palin made for herself, with its emphasis on all that small-town stuff: It convinced me that she makes a good PTA mom, that she may make a fine mayor, that she hasn’t totally bombed as the essentially brand-new governor of the third-least-populous state in the Union, even that I might like to have a beer with her, or a glass of fermented whale milk or whatever one drinks with mooseburgers. But just because we’re a nation of a hundred thousand Wasillas doesn’t mean all those hundred thousand mayors ought to be in the White House. Tonight, she sounded for all the world like an unusually sharp version of those “regular people” they drag onstage at conventions to tell their stories in the off-primetime hours.

I don’t think we need to bring Palin down by ridiculing her, tempting though that might be. It would just buy her sympathy. We need to let the American people know when she’s lying (I’m still waiting for the fact checks on her speech), but other than that, just step aside and let America have a good look at her.

I’ve been watching the convention with the sound off, mostly because I’ve been working on other things and don’t need the distraction. But, never fear, I will update this post with live blogging of Sarah Palin’s speech.

Meanwhile, feel free to snark about anything you’ve seen at the convention.

Update: Is it me, or is there something sinister about all those “Country First” signs?

I believe they’ve got the boyfriend sitting next to the pregnant daughter.

Palin: “There’s a time for politics, and a time for leadership.” McCain is stuck in politics mode, dear. He chose you.

She’s pushing the Commander in Chief button. I think of all the things she needs to do tonight, that’s about the last one.

Now she’s pushing the mother button and “special needs children” button.

Introducing her husband. She’s spending a lot of time on her family.

The “opportunity for women” button. Does she have anything to say about, oh, the economy?

They’re praising Harry Truman. Harry Truman was a flaming liberal by their standards.

She’s going on about how ordinary she is. PTA! Hockey mom! Small town!

I might vote for her … for PTA president. Depends on who she was running against, though.

This speech is all about her, with some snark about Obama. She’s not talking about America.

Wow, she eliminated a luxury jet. A bold decision.

Bridge to Nowhere! But she kept the money! What a hypocrite!

She has X-ray vision and can see the oil reserves under the North Slope. Wow.

What’s with the yellow scarves the delegates are swinging?

She said Obama hasn’t authored a single bill as a Senator. I can think of a few he authored off the top of my head.

Is this a speech that will appeal to anyone but wingnuts? I honestly don’t know. She’s dishonest and glib, so it’s not working for me. It will appeal to the stupid, of course.

Is anyone bored yet? I am.

Palin isn’t the reformer she claims to be.

Did you know McCain was a POW? Wow.

Good; she’s done.

This may sound sexist, but there’s something about Palin that reminds me of the woman that used to come to our high school home ec class and do product demonstrations.

They’ve got the bleeping boyfriend on the bleeping stage.

Olbermann is saying she sounded condescending.

The crew at Think Progress is fact checking, but as of now they’re still on Giuliani’s speech. I’m going to bed.

President Bush may address the RNC convention tonight via satellite. Oh, please make it so …

The Republican National Convention web site has no schedule up for today, as of a bit before noon EST, so I have no idea what’s going to happen there today, and apparently neither do they. I’m sure they were hoping that they’d get more mileage out of Hurricane Gustave.

Update to the update … this just in…

The Republican National Convention, cut back Monday because of Hurricane Gustav’s arrival on the U.S. Gulf Coast, will resume a full schedule Tuesday, convention officials said.

President Bush, who was scheduled to speak Monday, will deliver his address via satellite at 9:30 p.m. ET Tuesday, officials said.

Tuesday’s theme will be “Who is John McCain,” officials said.

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who ran in the early GOP 2008 presidential primaries, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democrat’s 2000 vice presidential nominee, will deliver primetime speeches after President Bush.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will have a speaking role at the Republican National Convention, a GOP official told CNN Tuesday.

Alas, I will be out tonight and will miss the President’s speech, but maybe I can catch Joe and Fred. (Note to self: Get Pepto Bismol.)

According to rightie bloggers, “leftists” are rioting in St. Paul. It appears the chief troublemakers are a group called “The RNC Welcoming Committee,” which describes itself as “an anarchist / anti-authoritarian organizing body preparing for the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.” They make it clear on their web site they don’t like Democrats, either, but they didn’t protest at the DNC because they would have had to travel to get there. Apparently most of these characters are local to St. Paul.

I can’t tell how much of the Welcoming Committee’s agenda is “left” and how much of it is “we’re assholes.” And are we sure some of these persons aren’t Ron Paul supporters?

It’s striking, though, that protests at the DNC (which were relatively mild and gentle), according to wingnut bloggers, “proved” that liberals are bad. Protests at the RNC also prove that liberals are bad. Funny how that works.

Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar Released After Illegal Arrest at RNC.

Evangelicals rally behind Palin after pregnancy news — not surprising. Pregnant, unmarried teenage daughters are as common as coffee and doughnuts with this crew. All they care about is that Bristol is not getting an abortion.

Speaking of abortion, I’ve got an article on the Buddhist view of the abortion issue up on the other site.

Stuff to read:

Eugene Robinson, “The Cynicism Express”

Greg Sargent, “The Palin Meltdown in Slo-Mo”

George Lakoff, “The Palin Choice and the Reality of the Political Mind“