Apparently the leadership of the Republican Party thinks voters are
turned off by specifics, and so Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech as
its presidential nominee last night was a hodgepodge of generalities,
musings on courage, reminiscence about his years as a POW in Vietnam,
and rabble-rousing calls for change.

But what would that change entail -- what new programs or policies or
ideas? That was left to the audience's imagination. On CNN, Jeffrey
Toobin called McCain's address one of the worst convention speeches he'd
ever heard. Yet even he had to admit that it was kind of exciting to
watch. Maybe McCain understands television better than people think.

He used the word "change" at least 10 times in his bombastic speech --
the convention's emotional climax -- but since the Republicans have
controlled the White House for the past eight years, what does McCain
want to change from? And to? It really is an audacious ploy, to tell
people that the country's got to correct the mistakes made by a
political party when that's the very party you represent.

It's like staging a revolution against yourself -- saying that the
Republicans have got to go so the Republicans can move in and clean up
the mess.

Tom Shales
Washington Post


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It's going to make for some interesting television commercials...