Pundits: McCain speech was a snooze

As expected, the know-it-all pundits ripped into John McCain's acceptance speech, saying it was a bore.

One reason they gave was that it failed to excite the GOP faithful. While McCain obviously did not go into his speech planning to offend the rock-ribbed conservatives, if he had provided a traditional red-meat speech, he would have pleased those in the Twin Cities, but he would have put himself at a considerable disadvantage with the rest of the electorate.

For the first time, it was the vice presidential acceptance speech given by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin that was designed to electrify the base, and it did.

McCain was speaking beyond Minneapolis/St. Paul to independents and disaffected Hillary Clinton Democrats. The worst portions of his speech were devoted to subjects that would mollify the base, including his defense of the discredited trickle-down economic theory, and his support of "retraining" workers whose jobs have been outsourced, never facing the reality that the same greedy CEOs and business interests that have outsourced the old jobs will outsource the new ones when it becomes financially advantageous for them to do so.

The strengths of the McCain speech were his rekindling of his maverick image- the man who fights pork barrel spending and does not offer any pork barrel proposals of his own, the man who went outside the box to choose Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate when the base would have much preferred someone like Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty or Rob Portman, the man who suffered through five years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp and refused opportunities to return home sooner by putting his own needs ahead of those of his fellow soldiers.

That McCain resonated, though obviously not so much with some of those in the hall.

It is still an uphill battle for McCain when it comes to the American electorate. If the vote comes down to the economy, and it looks like it will, McCain does not have a prayer. If he can make the race about anything else, McCain has a legitimate chance to become the oldest president in U. S. history.