Zzzzz

McCain's final speech was pretty much a dud, esp. contrasted with last night's side of moose served raw. What he really needed to do tonight was talk specifics, but by the time he meandered his way soporifically to the specifics it was hard to pay attention to them, which might have been the intent since there really wasn't much specific about the specifics.

What I largely got from the majority of the economic stuff was - in code of course - we really like it when people do stuff for themselves so when I become president I'll talk a lot of happy talk to the economically oppressed about bein' a rill Amerkin and pullin' yerself up by the bootstraps. In other words nada there for the folks who are really looking for some kind of plan. The usual straightfaced lie about Obama's tax plan, of course. The educational voucher stuff - really? I guess it gets the base fired up (not like serving up Obama Tartare, but it's a little bit of a red meat to this clearly Palin-hungry crowd). And then "oh my healthcare plan"... which is really not much of a healthcare plan, except maybe in terms planning to let employers off the hook of actually having to provide healthcare... but it's not "national health care"! (And the Sarahcudans go wild... yay! down with the pinko commies who think it's cool for everyone to be covered!)

Finally he gets a little actually excited about the energy plan, pushing once again the falsehood that Obama's against drilling and nuclear, when in reality there isn't much daylight between the two plans... the only difference I really sense is that Obama seems to be obsessively focused on it and therefore capable of actually achieving something with it, while McCain just seems mildly more interested in it than he is about the other policy stuff, which is to say "at all" as opposed to "not at all". He attempts to seem "enthusiastic" about it, but one can feel the quotes.

By that point frankly I'd drifted away and missed what was apparently the best part of his speech, the part about his biography as a POW, which clearly seems to be the only tangible remaining reason (since his maverick credentials are out the window) to vote him into office. I caught the very end of it, which was touching, but he also struck me as almost pleading... I know I'm just reading this into it - but his tone was one almost of, please, this is my last shot... An approach that totally works on me... fortunately I've got Sarah Palin to keep me strong.

Overall, meh. Even the offensive stuff was so unconvincingly delivered, or hopelessly oblique, that I didn't even care. I think he may very well have extinguished the Palin frenzy. Some commenter at TPM suggested that it won't be long before Palin pushes McCain off the ticket. And if independents were looking for inspiring or encouraging policy specifics, unless they were leaning so far toward McCain so as to topple in the breeze of anti-national health care fever or just have this thing for stale Republican boilerplate, I really doubt they would have been sold.

So maybe, whew..... But give it a week.