-I am surprised by the green background-didn’t he get slammed for a green background back when he clinched the nomination?
-Amusingly (and not surprisingly) that he thanked “the President” but not “President Bush” (although he did name Laura Bush by name).
-The tone is decidedly different from last night (at least to this point).
-Hmm, a little disruption in the hall. He appears to have recovered well, although the scenes of someone being forcibly removed is never pleasant.
-The protesters were from Code Pink.
Source: The AP.
-Palin just got the biggest cheer of the evening.
-If McCain really would use the veto pen to attack pork-laded bills, that would be quite appealing. One has, however, become cynical about such promises.
-The pointing to people in the audience is a bit too SOTUSish, and I don’t mean that in a good way, as I think that the whole props-in-the-audience-so-that-story-can-be-told-about-them bit got old a while back.
-He’s hitting the basic GOP talking points, but not giving a sense (to me, at least) of how he will get there.
-I am not getting any sense as to how he plans to not be Bush III to this point, and as I noted earlier today, he needs to do that.
-School choice and getting rid of bad teachers is a great applause line to a Republican audience, but it is getting a bit hackneyed, as the President has precious little to do with the issue. He isn’t running for school board, after all. Given that No Child Left Behind has simply resulted in more bureaucracy in our public schools, I am not sure that we need more federal meddling. At a minimum, I have no idea how McCain thinks that he is going to change the entire structure of the public school system in the United States by being elected president, especially since that policy arena is almost fully in the hands of the states and localities.
-I think he is inflating the significance of the Georgia situation.
-More was needed on how he would pursue the war on terror. And what about torture?
-It strikes me as a tad problematic to decry “partisan rancor” after all the harsh red-meat speeches from last night.
-Something I would like to believe (and is a dig at the Bush administration): the promise to have a transparent, accountable administration.
-The end of his tale about his imprisonment and torture, and his love of the ideals of America would have been a good place to discuss the question of detainee policy and his own opposition to torture by the US and what he would do about it as President.
-The speech was a bit longer than I expected.
Basic assessment: It was a pretty run of the mill speech. I am not sure that he did much more than present basic biographical boilerplate along with basic GOP talking points. Aside from not mentioning Bush by name, I am not sure that he did very much to tell us why he wouldn’t be Bush III, which, as I have noted, what I think he needed to do.
Note: Edited for typos and poor grammar (although no guarantees that I caught it all).
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The whole thing is sounding more like a typical Meet The Press interview than a speech for the ages.
Comment by KipEsquire — Thursday, September 4, 2024 @ 9:54 pm
Indeed.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Thursday, September 4, 2024 @ 9:55 pm
Just my view, from the left side of the spectrum - while the middle of the speech sagged, I thought he really kicked it the last ten minutes or so, beginning with his statement about being blessed with misfortune. Very powerful, IMO.
Comment by Harry — Thursday, September 4, 2024 @ 10:09 pm
I thought he did OK. Not a homerun but a solid double, and that puts a man in scoring position. Considering that McCain has never really excelled at the set-piece, teleprompter speech, a double is pretty good - although it can be easily argued that he needed more, it can hardly be said that he struck out, or that the game is over. I’m not even sure who has the lead at this point. I think it’s a much closer game than it was before the conventions.
I thought he did OK at distancing himself from Bush, although he did it by stating that “we failed”, referring to the republican party, and not by slamming the president by name. The crowd did not appear pleased with this comment; it appeared for a moment as if there might be some booing. That business about the republican party failing was perhaps not an A+ in terms of distancing himself from Bush, but I think it gets a passing grade at any rate. A solid C or a C+, maybe a walk if we continue our baseball catastrophe.
He did a better job than any republican in my memory of painting himself as “in-touch” with “everyman”. I’m not sure that will stick, but it’s been a talking point for the Obama camp for a while now that McCain is “out of touch”. Really I’m not sure these guys are ever in touch but I think he did a passable job as painting himself that way.
McCain built on the Palin speech and I think his campaign has continued to take some of the “change” ball away from Obama. The image of kids on a playground fighting over the ball still comes to mind. I think they took the ball, how long they can hold it, I don’t know; maybe a week, maybe a day, maybe a few months.
He hit the economy early and hard, and in a way that sits well with me, though I don’t know if it can really be implemented. By saying that the jobs that have gone won’t come back, and we need to retrain our workers to do jobs that will stay here, I think he’s onto something. He’s right. Manufacturing jobs, things like that - they just aren’t coming back, and the sooner we face that reality the better off we’ll be. There were some specifics there about assistance from the government while workers took lower paying jobs and retrained for something better. It sounds good in theory. I don’t know if it will work. But it sounds good, and that’s what these speeches are all about.
The energy stuff was meatier than Obama’s. He’s right in saying we can’t go independent in ten years, especially without using nuclear power. How all of that will sit with the environmental types I don’t know; nuclear power has long been taboo, for reasons I don’t fully understand; but the idea of increasing domestic production of oil - even if this is not going to be of huge benefit to us - enjoys huge support in America (the last poll I saw said more than 70% favored more drilling). So whether or not it’s relevant in reality, it was a relevant talking point in the speech, and in combination with Palin’s remarks on the subject, it amounts to better policy than what Obama suggested in his speech and I think he looked stronger on energy than Obama.
I’m not sure the protesters will matter. In fact I think they may have unwittingly lent a greater energy to the speech; it had been a bit of a flat beginning, especially with that green background (whoever was responsible for the stagecraft, McCain needs to fire that person over the green backgroun. Zounds!)
The POW story was. . . different. I had not hear him tell it quite that way before, and I really identified with it in a personal way. I was once a young, invincible paratrooper, ranger, and green beret. I was brash. I picked fights to see if I could win them. I wanted to serve my country, but boy did I want a chest full of medals and a glorious legacy to pass on to my kids.
Instead, my experiences were humbling. I went through the same process that McCain did - although I was never captured or tortured, I suffered the agony of watching friends and adversaries that I wasn’t sure were even adversaries die. I was injured myself and permanently disabled. Like him I live with physical reminders of those wounds - things that don’t go away. While the whole POW story has been overdone by his campaign, I think they dressed it up very well for this speech.
Instead of painting McCain as George Patton part 2, the indestructible hero, they painted him as a humble man who went through a change as a young man; the change was brought about by suffering and loss, and the grieving process associated with that. We all knew the POW business was coming. I didn’t expect it to be told quite that way.
Overall, a first inning with a home run and a solid double. . . that ain’t a bad first inning. If we want to continue abusing our baseball analogy, I don’t feel like the democrats did as well. In spite of the drama at Invesco Field, I think the best Obama did was a triple - and there was no one on base, so nobody scored. Maybe they had the lead going into things but overall, between the two conventions, I think the republicans played catch up and narrowed the gap between McCain and Obama.
It’s just a hunch, but I have a feeling there will be a larger bounce for McCain than Obama - which shouldn’t be hard, as Obama’s bounce was a bit weak. Whether or not they can hold on to some of that bounce will be a tough fight. I guess we’ll have those numbers in a few days.
And now the fighting begins in earnest. The mud will fly, the filth will be caked to the walls, and by November we’ll all just be glad it’s over.
Comment by Captain D — Thursday, September 4, 2024 @ 11:00 pm
[...] –Political Scientist Steven Taylor (one of TMV’s favorites) did live blogging. His conclusion: Basic assessment: It was a pretty run of the mill speech. I am not sure that he did much more than present basic biographical boilerplate along with basic GOP talking points. Aside from not mentioning Bush by name, I am not sure that he did very much to tell us why he wouldn’t be Bush III, which, as I have noted, what I think he needed to do. [...]
Pingback by McCain Reaches Out To Center In Acceptance Speech — Thursday, September 4, 2024 @ 11:51 pm
My understanding of the part about fixing schools was that he was endorsing a voucher system. That’s the only way I can see opening public schools up to competition, leaving schools answerable to parents (that can take their children elsewhere if the school fails to meet expectations).
Comment by Max Lybbert — Friday, September 5, 2024 @ 1:26 am
Max,
I understand what he is proposing. What I am criticizing is the ability of the president to actually do implement such a policy. It is a very popular idea with the base, and so a good applause line. It is not, however, anything he is likely to actually pursue if elected.
S
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Friday, September 5, 2024 @ 7:15 am
I’m sorry but, being captured by the enemy is nothing to brag about among ones greatest accomplishmants. John “machine-gun” Mccain is a lose cannon and we don’t need this in the white house right now.
Comment by Scott — Friday, September 5, 2024 @ 9:30 am
-I am surprised by the green background-didn’t he get slammed for a green background back when he clinched the nomination?
The background was Walter Reed MIDDLE SCHOOL in North Hollywood, CA.
Probably, his staff was looking for pictures of Walter Reed MEDICAL CENTER.
You think that Mr.-Support-Our-Troops would have thought that one through…
Another instance of carelessness on the part of a guy who clearly isn’t fit for the job he’s running for.
Comment by Ratoe — Friday, September 5, 2024 @ 12:03 pm
It’d be really nice if school vouchers actually worked.
All they really do is preferentially select for kids whose parents care about what school they go to, and those kids tend to do better to start with.
This finally came out before the turn of the millennium, when Wisconsin didn’t have enough money to give everybody participating in their school-choice program vouchers, so there was a nice cohort of kids-with-concerned-parents to study, and the ones who left didn’t improve over the ones who stayed.
Something that might make a difference is merit pay, which teachers’ unions tend to be against, but teaching isn’t like tightening bolts: it’s very personal, requires a lot of empathy, and has a very steep initial learning curve. But siphoning off the kids whose parents care isn’t going to help a school that can’t afford an efficient building or good teacher salaries get any better.
Comment by Glazius — Friday, September 5, 2024 @ 12:18 pm
[...] least, my fellow Alabamian, Dr. Steven Taylor of PoliBlog was live-blogging the McCain speech and simply noted something was funny about the backdrop at the time — in fact, the “green” backdrop was the FIRST thing he noticed: “… -I [...]
Pingback by Internets And Blogospheres Challenged McCain Campaign Makes Huge “Blooper” At RNC | THE GUN TOTING LIBERAL™ — Friday, September 5, 2024 @ 1:02 pm
You know, Ratoe, your bias is usually very clear but you don’t often break with ratioality so sharply.
Assuming they were looking for Walter Reed Army Medical Center is a bit of a stretch. Yeesh. I’m so tired of this line of thinking! You don’t know! If you don’t know, and your pie hole is open, you should put pie in it to prevent something stupid coming out.
Considering most of the other backgrounds were not of anything military in nature, but were instead of scenes from around America, I’d be more inclined to think it was a cute picture of a school, and they just didn’t think about what the green lawn would do on camera. Which is dumb, but I really don’t think your line of thinking is as plausible as mine.
Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Give me a break. I spent some time there. It’s an enormous campus that consists of numerous buildings, the largest of which has a couple hundred wards. You’re a lunatic if you think they could possibly be mistaken for each other, the middle school and the hospital.
You are searching for reasons to justify your hatred. I would say good luck with that, but I wish success to no one who is motivated by hate.
Comment by Captain D — Friday, September 5, 2024 @ 1:48 pm
You are searching for reasons to justify your hatred. I would say good luck with that, but I wish success to no one who is motivated by hate.
I’m not sure what I said constitutes “hatred.” McCain has a long record in this campaign for odd statements and questionable personnel choices.
Given this context fact that he chose to feature himself in front of a 50′ video screen of some random building is curious. As Steven has said on this blog numerous times, conventions are essentially theatrical affairs. In the theatre the entire enterprise is managed–so given this prominent featuring of a huge building and no mention of it in the speech it certainly isn’t unreasonable to question what the building was and what in the world it was doing there.
Since the campaign hasn’t responded to queries from the press about why the North Hollywood middle school was featured, people have started to speculate.
When I first saw it, I actually thought it was one of his mansions and that he was going to make some joke about it. The “Walter Reed” theory seems as plausible as any.
What’s your take on why it was featured, Captn?
Comment by Ratoe — Friday, September 5, 2024 @ 2:15 pm
I’ve already explained it to you.
Comment by Captain D — Saturday, September 6, 2024 @ 11:24 pm