RNC Running Diary: Night 4

Posted by Chris Connolly on 09.04.2008

Can McCain deliver the goods?

Well it's the final night of the RNC. So far we've seen night one lost to a hurricane, night two send a mixed message and night three deliver a withering attack on Obama and a star-making performance by Sarah Palin. The big question tonight: can McCain deliver? What I am looking for is for him to stay positive, address the concerns of Joe Sixpack, give an outline of actual plans he has and hammer home the idea that while changes are needed, they need to be in the direction of less government, not more. If any of the people opening for him give something better than an average speech, that will just be icing on the cake.

* CNN kicks off their coverage with Rudy, and they try to drive a wedge between Rudy and Palin. Fortunately, he doesn't take the bait.

* Dear lord, more protestors. Seriously, take a shower and get a job.

* OK, time to skip the talking heads...

* Gov. Jon Huntsman comes out to officially nominate Palin for VP. Decent speech, but he sounds hoarse as hell which makes him hard to listen to.

* Luckily they go to the shortcut route and save us some time.

* Perhaps the best accidental thing to happen due to her nomination: Heart's "Barracuda" has become a part of this convention.

* And now my Congresswoman, Marsha Blackburn takes the stage. Think Palin with a Southern accent and better hair.

* They just played a video on 9/11 and terrorism and now Wolf is wringing his hands over whether or not it was appropriate.

* Senator Lindsey Graham is out now to talk about Iraq and the success of the troop surge. Thank God he isn't out here to talk about immigration. We can debate until we are blue in the face about whether or not Iraq was the right thing to do, but one thing is for certain: McCain was right and Obama was wrong on the surge. It turned a situation from a clusterfuck to a victory. Pretty tough talk from Graham there.

* Nice bio video of Palin up now, which was supposed to air last night, but Rudy got carried away. It really send home the image of her as being an ordinary American and tough reformer.

* Anderson Cooper wondering where the policy discussion is. I'm wondering that too, but there was NOTHING about policy last week either.

* We get the tail end of Tom Ridge's speech. He's got Dubya's posture and Clinton's hand gestures. Very amusing.

* Cindy McCain bio video now. Hey, her dad met her mom in my hometown! Good job telling how her parents put everything they had into starting the distributorship. It's damn remarkable the charity work she's done over the years. You can't say that she was just some rich girl who sat around living off of her inheritance.

* She's out now with the whole clan, including the kids from his first marriage. No podium for her. It isn't a barnburner, but she's very personable, likeable and down to earth. Maybe a bit longish.

* They are resetting the stage, and I am thinking the lag here is a little too long.

* They finally play the McCain bio video. It's a good video overall, but dear Lord, I can tell you his entire life story now, as can anyone else who has watched this week.

* FINALLY he is out to speak. He comes out taking the high road with Obama, which isn't surprising. And oh great, the Code Pink idiots have managed to slither their way into the building. McCain does a good job of ad-libbing and brushing it off. I love the line about not being able to wait to introduce Palin to Washington. This blue background is a little distracting by the way. The stories about individual people are a nice touch. Great job going after the big spending idiots that have infected the party. The "back to basics" line is a good one; a lot of the disaffected voters out there right now are center-right and became disillusioned by the Bush/Hastert/Frist moderates who ran the party into the ground domestically. Hey, we're kinda-sorta getting specifics! I like the idea of changing the way government job assistance works. It's broken as all hell and needs to be overhauled. I hope he takes it to Obama on education, it's a great contrast: parental control and competition vs. bowing to the teacher's unions. I don't care what he says though, I am never driving a plug-in car, unless they somehow make one that can break the speed limit. One thing is for sure, it's nice to have someone running who realizes what an evil bastard Putin is. Good job contrasting his record of bipartisan work with Obama's lack of it. Damn, I tell you what, he is feeding off of this crowd here towards the end.

* Well that was different. He started out a little wooden, but picked up steam about a quarter of the way through it. I think the Code Pink idiots helped him loosen up. That was a very Right-leaning populist speech, and it hit everything I thought he needed to in order to be effective tonight. He gave more specifics than I thought he might, and way more than we got last week from Obama. Let's face it, he was not going to win this election with his speech tonight (the debates are where he will win it), but he could have lost it if he stumbled. He didn't. He spoke a little too long, but he still stepped up and gave a better than usual speech.

* Well, thank God the conventions are over. So this week saw us stumble out of the gate by not taking a stronger stance defending Palin on Monday, Tuesday saw us end with the wrong speaker, Wednesday was a bare-knuckle brawl with a star-making performance by Palin and tonight we finished off with a decent (but long) speech from McCain (complete with specifics!). A mixed bag, but I'll take it.