McCain Delivered Nixon's Speech

I have given myself a few days to digest what went down at the RNC. I missed some of the head flapping, due to some ER action, but I think I got the gist of it.

First, the Palin-drone. I am still pretty sure I don't know anything about the woman, or at least anything that is not scripted. Smart choice I guess, Palin, short of picking a veep candidate from another country you couldn't find anybody less known. She sorta seems like McGovern's pick of Eagleton. Experience or no? Reformer or governor who spent a quarter mil on a lobbyist to find some pork money for the home state? It seems to really open the door on lots of questions regarding McCain's campaign, to date.



Then there was the big show.

McCain delivered the same speech the GOP has used for forty years. Sure, there was some hero talk added, as expected. He brought up some Ruskie fear mongering, lower taxes, unexplained reforms and the culture of life line. The speech was greeted with cheers in the same way that fans of the Rocky Horror Picture show cheer, because the audience knew exactly what was coming. It might have been the most wooden acceptance of a presidential nomination I have ever witnessed.


I couldn't help but picture John as Frankenstein, stitched together dead bits brought back into this world. A monster adrift with his maker, on a raft of burning planks.


I know, that is pretty harsh. I actually liked McCain nine months ago, it hurts me too. It is the truth, however, and if you came away from that speech with anything but disappointment you were probably chanting USA too loudly to hear it.

McCain was a maverick, he has instigated change, he is a hero. How he could allow himself to be so radically be retooled by the party - and present himself as he did maddens and saddens me. Running as the man of change and talking about doing and delivering the same is a hard sell. The speech was a promotion of pandering to the GOP base - and I guess that is fine, that is his job now.


I am just left thinking that the world that the GOP base lives in is shrinking. The platform is built to support anti-choice greed-whores.
I am loosing patience with the culture of people who are willing to feed on conservative punditry and buy into the selfish notion that their best interests are more important the best interests of a world population that is slipping into poverty and discord.
Compassionate conservatism, may ass. Self servicing imposition on the rights and lives of ones peers, in an effort to pad a few folks retirements is more to the point.


This election season marks moment in time, at which we might choose to be better people collectively, domestically and globally.

Nine months ago I almost believed that McCain understood that. Today, not so much.