I think we can all agree that McCain’s speech wasn’t nearly as good as Palin’s. No need to run a poll on that. (To be fair, just as with Obama and Biden, their roles in speechmaking are entirely different. But still.)
My brother is in the Navy. I have great respect for the armed forces, and would do nothing to minimize their service. But from a politically strategic point of view, he’s beating a dead horse. Most of the country knows about McCain’s ordeal in Vietnam, though I’ll concede that they may not know the hairy details. But at this point, it’s too much. He’s talking about his experience in place of talking about policy. It’s something Obama’s been avoiding for quite some time now, and if McCain/Palin has any chance of taking it in November, they need to tell Americans what they’ll do that’s so much better than the other guys.
Except for the last minute or so, the speech had the tone of a lecture. I suppose that would’ve been fine if he’d been dealing out facts, if he’d begun with something like, “Alright friends, let’s talk details…”
But he didn’t. The text of the speech would imply the kind of emotional narrative that Obama recited. The Obama camp is totally right on one point: McCain and Friends desperately need to talk policy in detail. (As much as a politician on the campaign trail can, of course.) Obama has been notoriously ambiguous. McCain’s won over as many as he can with the POW story. To beat Obama come November, he needs to get specific with not just what he’s gonna do, but why that’s the best course for the country.