Mark Schmitt writes that John McCain’s speech last night faltered because it attempted to use one man’s biography to do the work normally done by an entire party's platform and ideology:
Last week we watched the national convention of the Democratic Party. This week we witnessed the national convention of John McCain.
And that, I realized while trying to pay attention to McCain's speech tonight, is the real source of difference between the two weeks and the two finales. It's not just that McCain's speech was poorly written (Mark Salter, who is more than a speechwriter but really gave McCain his voice, must have been busy with Sarah Palin’s speech), delivered awkwardly to a geriatric Caucasian crowd, and punctuated with smiles and thumbs-up at all the wrong places. It wasn’t the Kodak Carousel slideshow running behind him. It wasn’t just that even the grace notes were graceless: After declaring of Barack Obama and his supporters, “We honor their achievement” (What achievement? Oh, the whole first-black thing!), he hollered, “but make no mistake my friends, we’re the ones who are going to win!” Not, we’re the ones with the best ideas or the ones who can best end the war and restore prosperity, just we’re-gonna-win.
No, the notable difference, not just in the speeches but in the entirety of the two conventions, was that it is McCain who stands alone. He is the one whose platform is his own personal melodrama, the moment of doubt and pain after which, “I was never the same again. I wasn't my own man anymore. I was my country's.” He's the one whose introductory video declared that he “was chosen for this moment,” and “the stars are aligned” for his victory. Who's the messiah, now?
--The Editors
