Last night witnesses speeches from all three of the remaining major party candidates for President, two of which give us a preview of what the General Election campaign is likely to be like.
First, there was John McCain down in Louisiana taking on Barack Obama and welcoming him to the race:
Suffice it to say that the reaction to McCain’s speech was underwhelming to say the least and I can’t say that the bad reviews are off the mark. Take, for example, Andrew Sullivan’s take:
From the re-branded green background to the silly attempt to capitalize on Democratic divisions to the Clintonian cooptation of an Obama meme - “a leader we can believe in” - McCain’s opening gambit in the general election was, in my judgment, underwhelming. It wasn’t the content as such. McCain will rightly brag of his support for the surge (if not the war) and will have some reason to claim he is not running for George W. Bush’s third term. It was the delivery and the response that threw me off. To be blunt, McCain can be a pretty bad public speaker. He has a mild, relatively high-pitched voice and an uncomfortable way of smiling broadly and speaking softly as he makes tough attacks on his opponent. Those attacks were greeted by louder boos against Obama than cheers for McCain. It was a strange mix of aggression and calm, of cheeriness and anger. A little weird.
To say the least. The impression I brought away from it, though, was of a candidate more reminiscent of Bob Dole in 1996 than Ronald Reagan in 1980. Barack Obama may well be beatable in November, but something tells me that John McCain isn’t the man for the job.
After McCain was done, Hillary Clinton followed with her valedictory-but-not-concession speech:
What else can you say about it ? Barely a mention of the fact that her opponent has beaten her — in fact, reporters mentioned that the hall where she spoke didn’t have any television sets showing live coverage of the fact that she lost and internet access in the hall was minimal at best. No, it was all about her; which is usually how it goes with the Clinton’s.
I think what we saw last night was the beginning of Clinton’s effort to create the meme that a 2008 Democratic ticket that doesn’t have the name Clinton somewhere in it would be just, well, wrong. It will be interesting to see if Obama, and the media, fall for it.
Finally, Barack Obama took the stage in St. Paul, Minnesota:
There are many complaints one can make about Obama’s speech. Yes, it lacks substance; but victory speeches usually aren’t the place to make policy announcements anyway. The thing about this speech that stood out to me, though, is that it highlighted in 30 minutes why John McCain is going to have problems in November. There’s no denying Barack Obama’s rhetorical gifts; he can deliver a hell of a speech — much better than John McCain can. He also knows how to work a crowd. It’s easy to see that people are voting for Barack Obama — it’s hard to believe that many people find any John McCain speech similarly inspirational. That will make a difference over the next 153 days.
When it comes right down to it, and ignoring for the moment issues of policy, I think it’s clear that, last night, Barack Obama looked Presidential. John McCain did not.
