Day Four - RNC 2008
I listened to much of John McCain's speech on the radio as I drove home tonight. Some thoughts:
Without listening to the content of his speech, the quality of his voice was... well.. empty. Perhaps hollow is a better term. There's no warmth to his voice. No real expression or emotion. And then I started to pay attention to what he was saying. I felt like I was listening to white noise.
"We must fight the war. We must fight. We must." He tried to be emotional. "Tried" being the key word.
"We can't be complacent at moments of success." What success is he talking about?
"We were not poor or rich. We were not Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. We were not two countries. We were Americans." That sounds alot like what Obama said about the men and women who are fighting (They're not fighting as red states or blue states.. they're fighting as the United States.)
Granted, I couldn't listen to every speech at the RNC, but from what I've heard, McCain gave the FIRST speech to actually shows a little bit of respect to the opposing side. "My friends in the Democratic Party - and I'm fortunate to call many of them my friends..."
McCain definitely chained...er...tied himself tight to Bush. And he believes that we're much safer now than we were 8 years ago. Of course we're safer... Saddam Hussein is no longer alive to use the WMD - that he didn't have to begin with. Perhaps I'm being unfair in this statement - but this one statement is nothing compared to
everything said at the RNC.
I don't understand why he's harping on 9/11. I think that's just low. I'm not saying to never talk about it. I'm just saying that there's no reason for McCain to base his whole speech on 9/11, his war experience and the war on terrorism. So very depressing and negative.
I hate the shout-outs to the small Podunk towns in middle America. It's nice that he's putting the small towns in the limelight for 5 seconds. But how's it helping the speech except to make it so much more longer and boring? Perhaps if he just stood there and read the names of all the towns and cities, maybe the speech would have been a little more entertaining.
Who am I kidding?
The whole 'Stand Up and Fight' thing he tried at the end just wasn't working over the radio.
Gotta love the "We Raise McCain" tune. It's almost catchy. And the rest of the songs - did fall through a time warp to the 80s? Perhaps they're trying to bring the Reagan administration back.
I didn't hear anything substantial on the economy. Didn't hear anything about energy. So, what does he stand for? I got that he's all about competition, contests, war, arguements, and fighting. Winning and never surrending.
But it's not about winning and surrending anymore. It's about bring people together and working with each other for a common good. Having discussions. Being peaceful. Making each other better. Building each other and ourselves up. Not fighting against each other.
Hopefully America heard the violence and emptiness in his speech. And hopefully they're tired of fighting and being empty as much as I am.