John McCain gave his acceptance speech tonight and despite not being a naturally skilled orator, he did some very smart things in my eyes. After the previous days’ speeches reinforced all my preconceived bad notions about Republicans and Sarah Palin failing to inspire trust in her VP cred, McCain shifted gears tonight and scored with me and perhaps others who are undecided.
I’m still leaning Obama’s way, but McCain said a lot I wanted to hear. First, he was civil and respectful to his opponents. He quickly established that he wanted to reach out beyond the GOP for solutions. He hit the theme of working together twice in his speech – at the top and bottom. He struck me as sincere in that desire. I find it interesting that in this election each candidate is professing that we “have more in common than the things that divide us”. Could this be the beginning of change regardless of who wins? A boy can dream that somehow we’ll break our long nation nightmare of gridlock and get back to solving big problems instead of arguing over little details I guess.
McCain zeroed in on the concerns of common Americans. Smart move. I’m still not sold the GOP itself is anything but a front for corporate America and the already wealthy, but these days are the Democrats all that different? However, I think what John McCain demonstrated tonight was a real understanding of what the rest of us are going through each day. The current president has yet to achieve that. The reason of course, is because George W doesn’t understand what we are all faced with. He’s never had to.
McCain was smart too to say flat out that he “hates war”. That was a huge relief to me. I’ve never questioned that either candidate would hesitate to use force if they felt it was warranted. But, with McCain, I have an open question on whether he’d use it as a truly last option. The current president and his team has forgotten that part of what makes America great is that our goal isn’t to start fights, but to take them on only when there are no other better options. Tonight, I feel a little more secure that McCain isn’t looking to start new wars senselessly. I believe that his experiences make him much more sensitive to the human costs of conflict than the current administration, most of whom actively avoided service and then went all rah rah for it the minute they had the power to give the go order and be safely out of harm’s way.
Finally, I like that he blamed both Democrats and Republican’s for DC’s failings. He surprised me by blatantly saying that Republicans (who came to power in the 90s) let Washington change them instead of the other way around. While I still shudder at the memory of the Gingrich revolution and disagreed with its goals, I gained more respect for John McCain due to his calling out the GOP for their failure to stick to their principles.
As I wrote last night, America owes John McCain a debt of gratitude for his service. America doesn’t owe him the presidency. He will need to earn that. His smart moves tonight may have him on that path.
As for my own struggle, I think it’s fair to say that I like John McCain more than I did yesterday. He’s still got a shot with me, but there are so many questions. I can’t help worrying about his record of voting so often with George Bush. I also wonder how much of the stuff I was impressed by is lip service. I will likely never feel comfortable with his choice of VP. And finally, my worry is that electing John McCain means keeping in power a party that is largely stocked with people who want to ban books, ban sex ed despite higher pregnancy rates where it is banned, and generally seem skeptical/hostile to intellectual thought and faiths other than their own.
After all, e can’t solve everything by chanting “USA, USA” or invoking Jesus. God helps those that helps themselves it’s said. God didn’t give us our brains for nothing. God knew what he was doing. I wish the GOP would have more faith in our ability to think for ourselves. Indeed, that’s why God gave us free will.
John McCain’s going to have a tough time winning my vote I guess it’s fair to say. But, then again he’s won tougher fights…
2 Comments
September 5, 2008 at 11:57 am
Meat? I wanted some specifics, and I didn’t hear them, not from McCain, and not during the entire week.
We got party boilerplate last night. We’ll lower taxes, they’ll raise them. We’ll protect America, they don’t know how to do that. Same old…
McCain wants to say that we need to rebuilt the government that he helped break. To that end, he still owes us some details.
I get the argument: devil you know vs devil you don’t. But at the point, we know Obama. His policies have meat on the bone. You can tear them apart, chew them up, analyze them. McCain’s now the one running on Hope.
September 6, 2008 at 5:00 am
Way Outsider,
I think it’s fair to say that in their convention speeches neither McCain or Obama laid out the exact details.
What I look for is the overall vision. Sarah Palin failed to give that as did the other GOP speakers before Senator McCain. I think he did outline a vision.
Love your point about McCain wanting to fix a government he helped breaked, but suspect you can make the same argument against Joe Biden.
Thanks for taking time to comment and check out my post. Please come back and comment again.
Tidewater