It was so stale and WHITE. He tried. Barry or Hillary is going to clean his clock.

McCain is just terrible in front of the cameras.

One of the things about him is that he doesn't smile well.  His smiles always come off as kind of creepy and disingenuous.  He's at his best when he's being serious and looking like your uncle, a lot like Eisenhower in this respect, but he's not a charmer at all.

if he thinks he's going to be able to campaign head to head and keep up with Obama.  

One thing overlooked in all the 'polished gold' baloney about Hillary is that one of the things she really deserves credit for is just standing up to the intensely grueling schedule.  Maybe it seems mundane to people or it's hard to relate to.  But I saw these candidates in person, campaigning head to head for many months in Iowa.  It was a marathon that ended with weeks on end of around the clock campaigning.  They were all losing their voices and going through the colds that we Iowans were all passing around in that very harsh winter.  

Just being on their feet at the end of that was impressive.  And then Barack and Hillary took it on the road in a big way from here.  That has been the campaign most people have seen over the past five months.  But there was a whole year before it.  

If Barack and Hillary weren't both health freaks, neither of them would have made it.  

McCain is a tough old bird to be sure.  But I don't think he's going to be able to put out the sheer energy needed to keep up with Obama.  In many ways, we're going to be able to just outcampaign him.   Look at the way Barack did his speech last night at the site of the GOP convention.  He's going to go crashing into every battleground in the country and leave a wake of stunning headlines in all the local press behind him.  

McCain is eerily Reagan-like to me in his almost bemused little way.  We shouldn't underestimate him.

...or maybe after watching HRC and BO for months, I'm spoiled.

1.  He should have started his speech closer to 8 pm.  He had to know that if his speech ran close to 9, networks were going to cut away and deal with Obama becoming the presumptive nominee.  

2.  Podium speaking is, shall we say, not his strong point.  Given the massive audience he had last night, he would have been much better served speaking with mic in hand and basically giving a tweaked stump speech.  

3.  At some point, he'll probably read the words "now laugh at punchline" off the teleprompter.  

McCain had a chance to really draw a stark contrast with Obama last night.  I think he did draw such a stark contrast, but not one that his campaign wanted.  

And i agree.  My guess is McCain is going to be a much tougher candidate than democrats think.  I am just saying he is a great personal story, war hero, and come on the press is going to give him a pass on a lot of things.  My guess is this election is going to be close and maybe as close as 2008.  Finally, i think this "we are going to blow him out" is not a great talking point.  

david

Anything to say about the substance of McCain's speech, even if you found it lacking?

And then we complain about the media focuses on triviality.

Looks like Maureen Dowd has been training you.

Did you catch when he was trying to say "change in strategy" that he almost said "strange tragedy."  I can think of no better way to describe the Bush administration and those (like McCain) who enabled it, and continue to propigate its failed policies.

This is what McCain's staff is outlining for their general election strategy, according to WAPO:

"With the help of the Republican National Committee, McCain's campaign aims to portray Obama as weak and naive on foreign policy, with questionable judgment on big issues.

They will call him a liberal who is out of the mainstream. They will question his record on bipartisanship and cast him as an elitist who cannot identify with middle Americans."

I'm pretty sure that was Bush 2004 on Kerry, except they had THE WAR, too. At this point t,he Republicans aren't just bereft of ideas on how to govern, they have no ideas on how to campaign anymore.

Unless there is something I'm missing, he is bringing a knife to a gunfight.

And his task is daunting: he needs the 27% of dead enders that think Bush is doing a good job, but he also needs 23% of the electorate that thinks Bush is a train wreck. To pull that off he needs incredible deftness and political skills, with one of those important skills being able to effectively communicate to the masses.

Nothing I have ever seen of McCain makes me believe that he has the political skill set that is going to be necessary to pull this off. At this point in time - there is only one politician alive who I am certain has this ability, and that would be Bill Clinton. Now indications are that Obama may also have the right stuff, but it is still too early to draw that conclusion.

McCain's political assets are his personal narrative and his pseudo reputation as a maverick. Just by winning the GOP nomination, some of the luster has come off the maverick mantle. He has had to flip-flop on a bunch of positions, and he has done so without any deftness at all.

Frankly, McCain right now looks to be over matched.