Watching Sen. McCain’s stump speech in Iowa today, I am struck by how bad it is. Content aside, it is just a poorly delivered argument for why people should elect him president. Ranking it, it has more in common with John Kerry and Bob Dole. It’s a series of lines, each designed to elicit some kind of response from the audience – “Drill Now!” “Country First!” etc. For all his deficiencies and the overall simplicity of the argument, President Bush did far better on the stump in 2000, and especially 2004.
Yeah, it’s a really good point. McCain has gone negative on Obama, but it really hasn’t been as effectively negative as it could have been.
I mean, the Rove machine made Kerry look like a traitor, and he was a war hero. Couldn’t the Republicans make Obama look worse? That was always my fear.
But no: McCain has been just simply ineffective with his lines of argument. Why is that the case? Is his heart not in it? Does he think certain attacks are off-bounds? It’s going to be an interesting post-mortem of the campaign.
And the fact that McCain hasn’t hit as hard as Rove did in ‘04 is going to be fodder for the National Review folks to maintain going more conservative is the key in ‘12.
Hence, Mitt Romney in ‘12. He’s willing to attack like the right wants him to. Plus, he’s a white male. Hits the Republcian demographic perfectly.
McCain’s stump speech comes off as an unlikable Floyd R. Turbo.
As a Democrat and an American, I’m really starting to get pissed off about this “Country First” bullshit. Is McCain implying that Democrats don’t put country first? On what basis? Plus, isn’t this just projection on the part of the “Party first, loyalty second, then coutnry” modern-day GOP?
I’m an American citizen, dammit, and I consider myself patriotic, and I want my country back.
Perhaps “stump speech” means something else to him. More like “Stumped speech.”