Posted by
beltway girl on Friday, September 05, 2008 3:04:50 PM
Last night, in a speech accepting his party's nomination, John McCain may have secured a win in November.
At the beginning of these conventions, the candidates were running even in the polls. Their vice presidential selections and their acceptance speeches attained significance of mammoth proportions.
And Obama did everything wrong. First, he not only chose Joe Biden, but he chose him after fanfare worthy only of a Hillary Clinton.
So not only did Obama take a pass on a tested, vetted co-runner who guaranteed instant bounce at the polls with real votes, but he did it in an insulting manner. As Jennifer Anniston once said of Brad, there was a senstivity chip missing there.
To make matters worse, his much-anticipated text message came at 3 a.m.. This makes him look like the smart-alecky kid in high school who ultimately goes on to burn down a garage or break into a gas station, and you read about him in the neighborhood paper.
Next, Obama goes on to give his acceptance speech that is simultaneously magnificent and ridiculous. A long shot of the scene is reminiscent of a coliseum.
And the speech itself? Other than the line about change coming to Washington rather than from it, it was the usual laundry list of demands we hear from the Dems every year, although delivered in a superior manner.
But it was not just that Obama did everything wrong; it's that McCain did everything right.
First, he picked Sarah Palin as a running mate. Sarah Palin, who wields her tongue like a blade in a verbal knife fight, placed in Head Attack Dog position. Sarah Palin, who has touched off mass hysteria amongst the angry, entrenched, and up-to-now comfortable Frothed Estate. Sarah Palin, referred to by one writer as a hand grenade in the culture war.
Sarah Palin, who drew a nod for women this year from the Republicans while 18-million-vote Hillary claimed her nay.
Sarah Palin, whose choice emphasizes Obama's passing over of Hillary so sharply that pundits muse over whether McCain did it for that very reason.
Ah, the left. They imagine everyone swims in the same goldfish bowl of thought that they do, and the idea that one maverick simply gravitated to another never occurs to them.
And then, McCain delivered his speech. It, too was something of a laundry list, prompting the left to wag their index fingers in the air and exclaim, "Aha!"...
Except McCain's lauandry list was a list of the ways he has suffered for this country in its service and how he has loved it. How he still loves it, how he has fought for it in his senatorial career and how he will fight for it again. How he will deliver as a president for peace, attempting to heal the breach between the left and right in this nation, and attempting to find peace abroad, saving lives and the lifeblood of our men and women in the armed forces.
He notably spoke of the day a car pulled up outside his house to call his father to war, and how his father went away for a very long time. He spoke of his grandfather, also called away. And how when his grandfather finally came home, he died the next day.
His most powerful statement of the night was that he has the scars to show from his battles for this country, and Senator Obama does not. We should add that these scars would not just come from a bayonet. They would be from his prominent role in the culture war, the war of ideas in this country.
Back-to-back conventions, along with the choice of Palin and McCain's speech last night, have made the difference between the two presidential candidates so pronounced that the most mindless voter in America couldn't help but see it. It's the experience, stupid. And experience at the forefront is a scenario vastly favorable to McCain.
McCain's political brilliance in making all of this unfold as it has cannot be underestimated. Last night, as he accepted his party's nomination, he was not only a great soldier; he was a giant on the sociopolitical landscape. He cut through the jungle of political machination as if he were hacking through with a machete.
John McCain, as he stood on that stage last night, was Mac the Knife.