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09/05/2008

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At the end, the crowd became deafening. "Nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself," John McCain called out. With every sentence, the Republican presidential candidate had to speak louder to be heard over the cheers. "Fight with me!" he implored. "Stand up, stand up and fight! Nothing is inevitable here! We're Americans and we never give up! We never quit! We never hide from history! We make history!"

The delegates gathered in the XCel Energy Center in St. Paul were ecstatic. Confetti and balloons rained down from the ceiling. The candidate himself smiled broadly on the stage. And then he was off, to join his family and his vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin -- but he turned in such a way that the camera was suddenly filled with John McCain's back. He marched across the stage with Palin, to the left and then to the right. They both waved energetically to the crowd, but when Palin tried to put her hand on McCain's shoulder, he was no longer there, having marched back into the center of the stage.

Palin, the 44-year-old governor of Alaska and former beauty queen, and McCain, the 72-year-old Senator from Arizona and former prisoner of war, haven't quite yet gotten their stage-act down pat. And on Thursday evening, the final night of the Republican National Convention, one could easily see another major difference between the two: in her speech one night previously, Sarah Palin had seemed loose and relaxed as she stood at the podium. On Thursday night, John McCain did not.

Can McCain Keep Up?

It was McCain's biggest moment in the campaign to date -- the moment when he accepted his party's nomination to be the Republican candidate for the White House. And yet his speech was the antithesis of Palin's vigorously assertive speech 24 hours earlier. She brashly attacked Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and openly courted the conservative Republican base. She called herself a pit bull wearing lipstick. The gathered delegates were abuzz with enthusiasm. The conservative magazine Weekly Standard wrote that "Republicans haven't seen anyone like Palin emerge from their ranks since Ronald Reagan first attracted national attention in 1964." The obvious question went unspoken: Can McCain keep up with her energy?

Following McCain's speech on Thursday night it is now clear: McCain cannot. "Rather disappointing," is what former Bush speech writer Michael Gerson called it. "Very conventional" was the verdict of David Gergen, a political consultant during the administrations of Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.

McCain's team had spared no effort to make sure the evening was a success. They spent the entire night changing around the stage so that he would be surrounded by people as he spoke -- he prefers that to standing at a podium. A moving film about McCain's eventful life was shown, ending with a deep-voiced narrator intoning, "What a life. What faith. What a family. Country first. John McCain."

They even set up the Republican candidate with a new message: Change. It is a word that has so far been identified most with his rival Obama. But the Republicans have also begun talking about change -- McCain promised in his speech that change was on its way after eight years of Bush. The film likewise pledged that change was coming.

McCain spoke of the "constant partisan rancor" in Washington D.C. that must come to an end and proudly presented his secret weapon once again: Sarah Palin. "I have found just the right partner to help me shake up Washington," he said. "I can't wait until I introduce her to Washington. And let me offer an advance warning to the old, big spending, do nothing, me first, country second Washington crowd: Change is coming."

In Washington for a Quarter Century

So said the senator who's worked in Washington for more than 25 years -- and whose party is closely associated with Bush. But McCain can be allowed such departures, because few Americans hold any doubt about his character. They consider him an upstanding politician. McCain's reputation was a key aspect of his speech.

After two days of sharp attacks on Obama by McCain's friends in the party, he managed to portray himself as a unifying force. "Much more unites us than divides us," he said about his rival, and steered clear of personal attacks. And he stayed clear of the traditional appeals to the party's conservative base, except for brief references to anti-abortion policies, low taxes and conservative judges.

Above all, McCain presented himself as a loyal servant of his country -- an image easily backed up with his his five-year stint in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp. McCain has spoken of the experience often, but never as emotionally or effectively. He described the way he was taken to prison, the way two fellow prisoners took pity on him and nourished him back to health in his tiny cell, the way he turned down offers of release because other prisoners were ahead of him in line and earned more years of torture and beatings as a result -- and the way he transformed himself from a womanizer and daredevil into a patriot. "I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's," McCain said. "My country saved me."

It was a powerful moment, a powerful story. It was concrete and moving -- unlike most of the speech that preceded it.

Too Many Clichés

McCain covered lots of topics, but didn't say much about any of them. He sounded presidential -- but mostly like a president giving a dull State of the Union address. A few words about educational policy, a few words on tax reform, a few words on energy. In between he sprinkled in a little al-Qaida, a little Iran and a little Russia.

It was all tied together with far too many clichés read from the Teleprompter, like "Let's use the best ideas from both sides."

His recipe was most apparent in his approach to the economic situation. It's one of the most important issues to American voters -- and one the Democrats have tried to portray McCain as out of touch with. He made use of a trick that the "Great Communicator" Ronald Reagan made famous: Tell simple stories about simple people, to make a difficult situation easier to understand. "I fight for Bill and Sue Nebe from Farmington Hills, Michigan, who lost their real estate investments in the bad housing market. Bill got a temporary job after he was out of work for seven months. Sue works three jobs to help pay the bills," he said. "I fight for Jake and Toni Wimmer of Franklin County, Pennsylvania," whose son is autistic.

But McCain hurried through these emotional passages, not giving them time to sink in. The same went for the most relaxed parts of his speech, which he kept amazingly earnest, despite the fact that he could have earned points by using humor to contrast his style with the all-to-serious Obama. Almost none of this speech will stick in the memory. Everyone will remember Palin's speech from the convention, NBC political analyst Chuck Todd said.

Scores of Republicans saw it the same way. Two high-ranking strategists from the last election campaign, interviewed not far from the XCel Energy Center, knew that McCain was doing well in the polls against Obama. But they were far more excited about Sarah Palin's performance on Wednesday -- and full of talk about a future Republican Party without John McCain. "If Sarah Palin does well for herself in this campaign, she could be our next candidate in four years," the two Republicans said.