It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t soaring. The was very little red meat. But it was solid as a rock. Compared to the flighty and empty rhetoric of hope and change, that’s huge.
It was impossible to watch John McCain talk about his plans, his accomplishments, and his history,and not think, “This is the guy I want for a serious and necessary job. This is the guy I want protecting me. This is a man I trust with my money (or mistrust the least). This is a President of the United States.”
And who’s the other guy again?
I’m looking forward to the polls that will result from this. Absent some big, unexpected blowup, I’m now enormously optimistic.
By the way, who else saw Barack Obama’s unqualified, “Congratulations” ad tonight? Oh, yeah. It didn’t exist. Who’s the post-partisan in this race? Like so much else about the Obama campaign, McCain lives the themes that Obama can only speechify about. And it turned out to be brilliant politically for McCain, since the favor was not returned.
(And don’t misunderstand – I’m not against partisanship. I like constant and robust debate, and generally think “post-partisanship” is code for “delegitimizing dissenting opinions”. But when you make a whole run for the White House pledging to end partisanship, you could at the very least follow John McCain’s cue, spend some of that excess cash you have, and return the salute.)
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A couple more things. McCain picked a running mate who he had to have known would overshadow him, or at least out-glitz him. And when she did just that last night, he came out to the stage, took a little, “look what I found, guys!” credit, and then just beamed along with the rest of us. He let her (and all her fans) have their moment. He didn’t need to make it all about him. And then tonight, he didn’t try to oratorically outdo his running mate, he just plowed through his very genuine speech and got the message out. All politicians are egoists to some extent, but it takes a person of great personal confidence to set that ego aside when the moment calls for it.
Maybe it’s a Navy thing. The best officer I ever served under (who had ego to spare) used to go out of his way to publicly give other people credit for things he’d done, or at least orchestrated. He would set people up for success, and then let them reap alone what he had helped to sow. If we faltered, he “took a spear” for us, as he’d put it, and would take the blame when the captain was mad about something. But he did it in a way that inspired us (or at least me) to not have to need the help next time, and maybe more importantly, to not have to have him fall on his sword again.
Contrast that with Obama’s “surprise” cameo after Joe Biden’s speech last week. When Biden finished, Obama grabbed that mic and spoke for 3 more minutes. That’s a guy who doesn’t have the confidence or the maturity to let someone else be in the spotlight during his convention. That’s a guy who always needs to have the last word.
That’s a guy who doesn’t trust his own team.
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When McCain started himself talking about his POW experience, I groaned just a little bit. It’s an awe inspiring story, but the basic fact of it is a little overplayed.
And because the mere fact that he was a POW is overplayed, it’s easy to forget the details that are so critical to understanding why it matters so much, and why we should be reminded of that history with this candidate. When he talked about his new-found humility and torture-induced humiliation, that said a lot. Again – this is a man who knows exactly who he is, and isn’t afraid to let us see the whole package, warts and all. And when he spoke of his friend who saved his life by code-tapping out an admonition to get right back up and keep fighting for him and for his country after the VC had “broken” him, my eyes welled and my throat choked.
Now, I’ve not ever been to an Obama rally, but it’s not often a political speech does that to me. The contrasts between these two men and the histories that have shaped their characters is indeed stark.
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I usually couldn’t give a damn about my party affiliation, but tonight I’m very proud my party produced this ticket.
