Live Blog: John McCain caps the convention season
Moderated by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
One more speech to go. Then we look forward to the debates. And the rallies. Maybe a Virginia campaign stop or two or more.
But first things first. It’s John McCain’s night at the RNC, and we’re going to provide the place in the Valley to discuss the speech from McCain and the fall campaign.
Join us in what promises to be a rollicking live blog tonight!
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I don’t disagree. It seemed to me that people were looking at their watches waiting for him to get done so they could go home.
Bill Kristol offers interesting analysis. He essentially agrees with me, that McCain is no longer touting experience, but instead is offering himself as an agent of change.
Kristol: “It’s really a different race than it was two weeks ago.”
A paradigm shift from the McCain campaign on the final night of the RNC. Interesting. If I can be critical, let me say this. It can be awfully hard to co-opt someone else’s message when that someone else has the populist appeal that Obama does. But they have to have a reason for doing so. Their poll numbers must be telling them that the swing voters out there want change, not “more of the same.”
Karl Rove: “It was a workmanlike speech, but not what we saw last night.”
McCain’s unique problem in this election comes to light here tonight on a national stage. He has to figure out a way to keep the base on his side while at the same time reaching out to the swing voters that he will need to be able to pull out the victory.
His speech tonight was a reach-out. The comments that I heard on Fox, with every commentator, to a person, completely and totally underwhelmed by what McCain had to say, tell me that it didn’t do what it needed to do to shore up the base.
It’s a fine line, to be sure. And one that he will have to walk very carefully through Nov. 4.
Krauthammer on FNC: “I thought it was a strange speech, a strange week, a strange convention.”
Response from the Obama campaign:
“Tonight, John McCain said that his party was elected to change Washington, but that they let Washington change them. He’s right. He admonished the ‘old, do-nothing crowd’ in Washington, but ignored the fact that he’s been part of that crowd for twenty-six years, opposing solutions on health care, energy, and education. He talked about bipartisanship, but didn’t mention that he’s been a Bush partisan 90% of the time, that he’s run a Karl Rove campaign, and that he wants to continue this President’s disastrous economic and foreign policies for another four years. With John McCain, it’s more of the same.
“That’s not the change Americans need. Barack Obama has taken on the special interests and the lobbyists in Illinois and in Washington, and he’s won. As President, he’ll cut taxes for 95% of all working families, provide affordable health care to every American, end the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and eliminate the oil we import from the Middle East in ten years,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson slams McCain’s speech on MSNBC
MICHAEL GERSON: The policy in the speech was rather typical for a Republican. Pretty disappointing. It didn’t do a lot of outreach to moderates and independents on issues that they care about. It talked, about issues like drilling and school choice which was really speaking to the converted. I think that was a missed opportunity. Many Americans needed to hear from this speech something they have never heard from Republicans before. And in reality, a lot of the policy they’ve heard from Republicans before.