McCain speechFollow

There had been interviews with his staffers prior to this where they purposefully tried to downplay him as an orator and spoke of how he would model this speech on his 2004 convention speech, and keep it to "short phrases" because he was not good at flowery oratory and his speeches tended to go over best when he was simple and repetitive. That's what got us the whole "stand up and fight, we're Americans we make history" finale. He's trying to position himself and his party, as always, as strong decision-makers and make a clear distinction between his action-packed bravery and the Dems' wimpiness. It's textbook GOP, and appeals to who he means it to appeal to: conservatives.

My take? It was a so-so speech, delivered at the best of his admittedly mediocre ability, and anyone who stops to think about who he's really trying to be would have a hard time calling him either a candidate for change or a true conservative. The sound byte at the end was meant to distract you from all the talk about "changing Washington", and I'm sure it worked.

McCain wants to help illiterate adults like you.

I'm betting Palin got an estimated twice as many people watching her speech as McCain did, mostly because of the start of football season yesterday.