Thursday, September 4, 2008

MCCAIN'S speech

Tonight, Jonh McCain is giving the nominating speech at the Republican convention. How do you think he performed?

3 comments:

duse said...

As I generally do, I tend to wish politicians would put more substance about how they actually plan to do what they say they are going to do in their speeches, but I understand the limitations of speech giving and the necessity to keep the attention of the audience/viewers. I tend to agree more with McCain on issues such as less "big government" than I do with Obama, simply because I believe the less government interferes with our daily lives the better. I realize that each day we must have government interaction, but more government regulations and programs, and therefore, more interference, is not a good thing. Specifically concerning McCain's speech, I do not think he is a very good public speaker. He doesn't have the charisma of the younger Obama, but it wasn't necessarily a bad speech. I think he did mention some specifics and numbers, which I appreciated, but unfortunatlly I can't remember them. I know he did mention one thing, which I particularly appreciated and that is going "back to the basics" of government. I think government and politics is rather convoluted as it is and if he could go back to the "basics" it would probably be a good thing, but I'm uncertain of his ability to do that since he has been a Washington politician for so long. I do think it was a good move on McCain's part to bring in Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate. She is fresh blood, something Washington often needs and, although inexperience, in many cases, being a governor instead of a senator can provide one with more appropriate experience for the presidency or vice presidency because governors are, as the constitution says an "executive authority."
I did tend to agree with the pundants that talked after the speech, that the speech had distinctive parts. I thought there were almost thirds to his speech: the introduction of himself, etc, which I thought was very weak; the body of his speech where he talked about issues, etc., which I thought was an improvement; and his story about his life and service to the nation (mainly from being a POW), which was the strongest and most passionately delivered part.
Overall, I thought McCain's speech was fair. It is hard to compete with such a charasmatic opponent as Obama when it comes to public speaking and, I'm not trying to make too big a point out of his age, but for someone nearly as old as my grandparents, he did a very good job. (but he does need to work on switching teleprompters more, so it at least looks like he's looking into the crowd.)

Cressida said...

^^ As much as I hate to admit it, yes, federalism does have some strengths.

But it is not worth all the other policies McCain's going to install if he gets elected, especially with Palin whispering in his ear the whole time.

duse said...

Tessa, please elaborate as to your speculation...