John McCain's acceptance speech got off to a rough start tonight. Bloggers from the left and right were in shock as McCain began speaking before a giant, lime green backdrop, reminiscent of the awful stage backing during his universally panned speech after securing the nomination a few months ago.

But as the speech reached its conclusion, McCain found his comfort zone and delivered. He'll never give a speech with the oratory skills of Barack Obama, or even Sarah Palin, but he delivered specific policy proposals and crossover talking points that neither of his more vocally gifted counterparts offered. Like many of McCain's speeches, there was much to like here, but it comes filtered through his awkward delivery and a not always receptive audience.

1. Daily Kos diarist BarbinMD:


3. The increasingly-excitable Andrew Sullivan is feeling more reserved:

It made me realize how much I am still fond of this guy. And also clearer about why this is not his moment. The specifics were very vague, and the entire presentation based on biography, nostalgia and a kind of strained, exhausted mildness. His performance at Saddleback was much, much better. He seemed very tired to me.

4. Reason's Tim Cavanaugh has probably the kindest words you'll hear for McCain coming from the apparently Obama-leaning, but certainly anti-McCain publication:

I think. McCain's speech was good, very gracious, moving in parts, and generally serviceable. The roof was blown off the dump last night, I guess. Maybe this was good enough.

5. And finally, from the conventional in convention wisdom, Swampland's Jay Carney:

A mixed performance. The ending worked, though in the hall I doubt anyone could hear him very well as he spoke through the crowd's applause. The final peroration -- "We're Americans. We don't hide from history. We make history" -- was strong stuff.

I asked this guy if he was here supporting Ron Paul, Bob Barr or just opposing the GOP. "I'm here for myself," he said:

The protesters arrived in force today, from Code Pink, to acoustic guitar strummers, to one woman on stilts. But at least as of right now, the law enforcement teams are ready. There seemed to be a lot more cops on the scene than actual protesters:

Here's a link to my feature over on the CQ Politics main site today about how John McCain and conservative talk radio have begun to heal their often tumultuous relationship. It almost goes without saying: Sarah Palin was a silver bullet:

McCain's recent moves to the right also appear to be making inroads with evangelical Christian talk show hosts. Lee Michaels and Jeff Shell, co-hosts of the KKMS Live! With Jeff & Lee show, based out of Eagan, Minn., say their listeners have been responding more positively to McCain than in recent months.

"We're an arena of ideas. It's our job to put information out there so our listeners can make up their own minds," Michaels said. "But we come at this with a conservative perspective and a Christian world view. Sarah Palin is a huge asset. I think it was a turning point for [Focus on the Family President] James Dobson and many others."

Sarah Palin's speech last night was watched by 37.2 million viewers, just three percent less than Obama's speech, despite an obvious network bias in favor of Barack Obama. This was the main speech of the RNC, as John McCain's acceptance speech will almost certainly have less viewers, since the NFL will launch its opening night of the season against one of the most important political moments of the campaign. From the Nielsen blog:

• The Sara Palin speech generated 37.2 million viewers, just a 1.1 million viewers short of Barak Obama's record-breaking speech on Day 4 of the Democratic Convention.  The Palin speech was carried on only six networks while the Obama speech was carried on ten (including BET, TV One, Univision and Telemundo).
• Palin attracted a large female audience (19.5 million women, or 4.9 million more than Day 3 of the Democratic Convention).
• Ratings for viewers 55+ (25.2) continue to be about ten times higher than for teens (2.2)
• Day 3 for the GOP attracted more Hispanic viewers (1.4 million) than Day 3 of the Democratic Convention (1.2 million), even though Univision and Telemundo did not carry the speech.

We now know that Sarah Palin's acceptance speech for the Republican vice presidential nomination was a soaring hit for the Republican base. The obvious question is the same as after her first appearance with John McCain last week: How much does that enthusiasm trickle down ballot and how far before its resonance begins to dissipate?

As someone who grew up far away from the Beltway and any sense of entitlement, I found her most compelling line to be the one that lacked a political component: "Our family has the same ups and downs as any other ... the same challenges and the same joys." It was such a good line that the AP mentioned it twice in their analysis piece this morning.

We still won't know for a day or two how the rest of America reacted to the speech, and John McCain's own address tonight could change the dynamic once again, for better or for worse. But here are some more quick takes from those following the election closely, starting with TNR's Michael Crowley:

I completely misjudged how negative she would be. Her lines about Obama were brutally cutting and possibly over the top in places. But she's a far better messenger than an angry white man.

Yossarian makes a point I've been arguing since before the primaries began: Do we really want an "average" person to be our next president? None of the candidates are in fact average, but they are going to great pains to make us believe so:

Obama's team spent much of the time during the convention promoting the idea that he's "average". And Palin spent the first third of her speech emphasizing how she's just a regular busy, working mother like so many other people in this country.

My CQ colleagues and I were trying to tabulate off-hand how many, if any, references to George Bush there have been from the main speakers so far. The Economist's Democracy in America blogs tells us the answer is one: from Mitt Romney.

And finally, Andrew Coyne says Palin is the "best natural speechmaker" since Reagan:

Her critics in the media and in the opposition may regret having piled on quite so enthusiastically, and with so little heed for who they hurt -- or angered. Watching the tumultuous, ecstatic reaction in the hall, I was reminded of the famous words of the Admiral Yamamoto after Pearl Harbour: "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant, and fill him with a terrible resolve."

Sarah Palin delivered a dynamic speech tonight that was heavier on attack lines than any speech from either convention so far. The right is swooning, the left is mocking, but both acknowledge her political prowess.

Daily Kos diarist "georgia10":

With her snarky, amateurish, almost Student Council-like speech, Palin proved today that she can attack like a candidate for vice-president.  And she demonstrated that she can support the top of the ticket like a candidate for vice-president.

National Review's Jonathan Adler on Palin's depth:

I have one thought on the substance.  Including an extended discussion of international energy markets was quite shrewd.  It allowed her to play to one of her strengths -- energy policy -- while simultaneously undercutting concerns about her lack of foreign policy experience. She talked about the significance of foreign production and the geostrategic importance of pipelines with a level of sophistication that few would have anticipated, and it worked.  Had she tried to get into the nitty-gritty of Iraq or Iran, on the other hand, it would have seemed quite contrived.

Matthew Yglesias, from outside the convention floor in St. Paul:

Palin is having a hard time holding the attention of the drunk C-Listers with "limited access" credentials hanging out in the basement. No idea whether or not that's a good proxy for the overall effectiveness of her rhetoric. To my ear, Huckabee blows the rest of the GOP away as an orator.

John Hinderaker of the conservative Powerline blog:

Aspects of the delivery could have been better and the conclusion could have been stronger. But she passed the test, and neutral viewers who tuned in to see whether she seems ready for the Vice-Presidency had to be impressed. Palin showed that she will be effective on the campaign trail and will be a thorn in Barack Obama's side from now until November.

The conservative Anchor Rising blog:

Ahem, after listening to her speech, ladies and gentlemen, I'm betting she is plenty tough enough and most surely ready for primetime.

Both conservative and liberal bloggers are espousing theories today as to whether the traditional media have been biased against Sarah Palin. Howard Kurtz's column today on being grilled by an "absolutely furious"  Steve Schmidt is the most discussed in the blogosphere.

On the left side of the argument, Josh Marshall says reporters and readers are "getting played" by Schmidt, whom he says is confusing personal rumors in the blogosphere with legitimate inquiries into her political associations and experience:

Schmidt, by the way, is one of the most hard-boiled GOP operatives and Rove proteges around. I guess he and his McCain colleagues missed the whole Rev. Wright episode, Clinton impeachment episode and, what, maybe twenty other episodes over recent years.

Joe Klein thinks John McCain is sincerely agitated at the press, but says Schmidt is provoking a media war for "tactical reasons." I think both of Klein's points are probably right. But I disagree with what appears to be Klein's conclusion that a tactical decision disqualifies the merits of the complaint.

On the right, Jennifer Rubin predicts the attacks on Palin will backfire against both the media and Democrats. I think there's a good chance she's right about that, especially with Republicans and some independent voters.

National Review's excellent reporter Jim Geraghty makes a point being argued by several Republican lawmakers today:

In 72 hours, the media has subjected Bristol Palin to more scrutiny than they've given to Barack Obama in two years. Perhaps that's a mild exaggeration. But pretty darn mild.

And the often sound Stephen Bainbridge concludes:

I think this ends up helping McCain. In particular, it may redress some of the enthusiasm deficit. Lots of Republicans who had no fire in their belly for McCain are now seriously pissed off at the media. If McCain sticks by Palin, I may even open my wallet.

The Nielsen Blog has TV ratings for last night's first big round of speeches at the Republican National Convention:

• Overall viewing was more than 4.3 million people lower than Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention, and 600,000 people lower than Day 2 of the 2004 Republican Convention.
• More women (11.2 million) than men (9.5 million) watched the GOP convention (the same trend as Day 2 for the Democrats)
• African American viewing of the GOP convention (2.1 million) is less than half what is was for the Democratic convention (4.6 million)

Human Events' Michelle Oddis has a great video interview with Fred Thompson, hours before he addressed the Republican National Convention last night. Thompson once again breaks out the cigar (though I'm told this time it's not a Cuban) and makes reference to his previous Michael Moore rebuttal video, probably the one highlight of his short-lived presidential run:





In case you missed Thompson's speech last night, you can watch it here via the C-SPAN RNC Hub. Everyone was expecting Joe Lieberman to own the night, but the near-unanimous response from Republicans and the media on the ground here in St. Paul is that Thompson wowed the audience with his passioned defense of John McCain and Thompson's full-frontal assault on the media:

BlogPAC, founded by leading progressive blogger Matt Stoller, has released a new ad going after John McCain's two marriages. Stoller, a Harvard educated, talented political strategist, usually makes his mark by engaging in personal attacks against his ideological adversaries. So, it's not a big surprise BlogPAC would go there. But the reasoning in their press release seems a bit odd, considering how the traditional media has gone after Sarah Palin and her daughter Bristol this week:

While John McCain's surrogates make specious assertions regarding Barack Obama's character, patriotism and associations, the legacy media has simply shrugged. Suckling the saccharin nectar of false bipartisan civility, the mass-media consensus seems to be that such attacks are okay, as long as they are made by a conservative Republican.

From the new ad's text:

"Which presidential candidate married a beautiful swimsuit model? Who left his swimsuit model wife after she was disfigured in a tragic car accident? Who dated a woman almost 18 years his junior, while still married to his first wife? John McCain, that's who. Ask the media why they don't tell you these things."

Barack Obama has had a tenuous relationship with the Fox News Channel, whether it was one of his aides getting into a shoving match with Bill O'Reilly, or Obama following John Edwards' lead in refusing to take part in a FNC sponsored Democratic debate earlier this year. But the always excellent Ari Melber reports that's all about to change:

Yes, Sen. Barack Obama is headed for Fox News, in a bid for Republican votes, by appearing for the first time ever on Bill O'Reilly's prime-time show. While McCain aims his acceptance speech at voters beyond his base, Obama will be talking to the bright red Republicans who watch O'Reilly's highly rated show.

What a smart and savvy move by the Obama campaign. Millions of Republicans and conservative voters will be tuning into Fox News tomorrow night and will likely be seeing Obama on camera in an extended capacity for the first time since is own acceptance speech last week.

Here in St. Paul, conservative talk show radio hosts occupy a long hallway leading into the Excel Center. Much like the conservative blogosphere, the conservative and evangelical airwaves have not always been the warmest enclave for John McCain. But in talking with some of them today, I have found a sea change in their outlook towards the soon-to-be anointed Republican nominee, and much of that has to do with Sarah Palin.

Even Rush Limbaugh seems to have come around.

"He's always been a strong pro-life candidate," said Jeff Shell, co-host of KKMS Live! with Jeff & Lee, based in Eagan, Minnesota. "But [Palin] energized the evangelical base and sucked the air out of Obama's nomination."

"It's been a huge boost," added his co-host Lee Michaels. "Defense and national security have always been strengths for him with our listeners. And the Rick Warren Saddleback Forum helped a lot. Warren is an example of how important evangelicals still are and it really increased the enthusiasm for the Republican ticket."

"Maybe one in twenty have been disappointed with the Palin pick," said Lars Larson of KXL in Portland, Oregon and his Westwood One national affiliate. "Sarah Palin has far more executive experience than Obama."

I'll have more on the influence of talk radio at the Republican National Convention later this week. But the message here is that conservative talk radio was not able to derail McCain's drive for the Republican nomination and they aren't likely to be a drag on his general election effort either.

Ron Paul is in negotiations with the McCain campaign for an agreement that would allow Paul to travel through the convention perimeter in exchange for access to Paul's supporter list. Technically, Paul is already allowed to travel to the convention floor as part of the Texas congressional delegation, but the agreement would allow him to bring some staff, including a bodyguard. Personally, I thought it would only be a distraction to have Paul participate in any formal capacity. But reading Ralph Hallow's story today, and the accompanying video interview with Mr. Paul, is definitely giving me second thoughts.

Is there any way having Ron Paul on the convention floor could turn out to be a smart move by McCain? Doug Mataconis says he'd be shocked if any such agreement was reached:

Ron Paul barely made a dent in the Republican primaries and he's openly attacked the Republican nominee and suggested that it would be best if his supporters voted for a third-party candidate such as Bob Barr or the Constitution Party's Chuck Baldwin,

Of course, Sarah Palin herself once had some nice things to say about Ron Paul in an interview with MTV:

Governor Sarah Palin: He's cool. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's so independent. He's independent of like the party machine, I'm like, right on, so am I. The party machinery, on both sides of the party, ya know, Americans are tiring of the incessant partisanship that gets in the way of just doing the right thing for this country.

Forgive my amateur Photoshop skills, but with Cindy McCain and Steve Ducey saying that Sarah Palin understands foreign policy because of Alaska's proximity to Russia, thought I'd dig a little deeper. Turns out they do have some common ground. Though Putin allegedly only tranquilized his prey:

Volunteers at the Republican National Convention are walking around the premises in bright orange shirts. One of the convention sponsors, and the one listed on the t-shirt is monster.com, a job-hunting site.

I was going to post this pic simply to make the joke that RNC staffers are walking around in "monster" t-shirts. But this seems like even more fodder for critics: With Bush's mediocre record on the economy, is it best to have your party's convention hosted by an employment agency?

As I mentioned yesterday, the Republicans are taking a much more liberal approach to convention protesters, i.e. not putting them in a cage. Yesterday morning, Iraq Veterans Against the War held a rally. And today, a group calling itself the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War held a high-profile march, with crowd estimates ranging from 8,000-10,000 participants.

Most of those marching did so peacefully. But as they are want to do, some anarchists got into the mix, breaking windows, slashing tires, and other things anarchists do to discredit causes they most likely agree with. They're kind of like a walking, talking MoveOn "General Betray Us" ad.

Anyway, I had a chance to do interview the Minnesota Peace Team, a group of volunteers whose mission is to protect both the protesters and the police.

The confirmation from Sarah and Todd Palin that their 17-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant is sending shock waves through the lefty and righty blogosphere.

But discussions of Palin family pregnancies were already dominating the blogosphere even before the news broke. That's because some progressive bloggers were engaging in a conspiracy theory that Sarah Palin's youngest child, Trig, was in reality the child of Bristol.

Daily Kos diarist Red Pen has tried to put a stop to the baseless rumors, which first began circulating on the Kos site. However, even the usually respectable Andrew Sullivan has lowered himself into this debate, arguing that the press is "doing their job" by following the inuendo.

As to the actual news of Bristol's pregnancy, socially conservative bloggers are turning their ire to the left and the media, rather than against Palin. What I think this demonstrates is that while social conservatives certainly opposed intimate affairs outside of marriage, they value pro-life positions more. Leading conservative Hugh Hewitt writes:

This is hardly a rare story, though it is always a difficult one for families to work through.  In the end it just means that Sarah Palin will not only be the first woman and mother to be vice president, but also the fist grandmother to hold the office as well.

But most liberal bloggers are ignoring this story, or at least, handling it with care. A good example is Washington Monthly's Steve Benen, who does use the story to make an argument about pro-choice policies, but more importantly, declares:

Now, there are different schools of thought on this, but I'm very much inclined to think a politician's kids are entirely off-limits for public scrutiny. Bristol Palin's pregnancy has no political relevance whatsoever.

During the Democratic National Convention, Focus on the Family's Stuart Shepard released a video asking supporters to "pray for rain" during Barack Obama's acceptance speech. A CQ colleague reminded me of this earlier, and I tracked down the video. In the text, Shepard says:

"Would it be wrong if we asked people to pray for rain? Oh, not just rain; abundant rain. Urban and small stream flood advisory rain." He does later add, "Not flood people out of their houses rain, just good ol' swamp the intersections rain." As lame as the video was to being with, it looks especially dumb now. If you're religious, I guess this shows the risk of asking your chosen diety for an I.O.U.




Of course, it's not just conservatives who look bad when it comes to flooding and divine intervention. Daily Kos diarist Scout Finch also remembered the Shephard video and says:

While the residents of the Gulf coast are in our own hearts and prayers as they weather this storm, there does seem to be a sense of justice that New Orleans and memories of Katrina would come back to haunt this Republican convention. The memories of Katrina should rightly haunt them for the rest of their years.

 


What an incredibly shallow thing to say as people are facing the possibility of death and destruction. Any honest broker knows that while President Bush's handling of Katrina was a disaster in its own right, former Democratic Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco dropped the ball as well. Disaster response efforts are about competence and compassion, not ideology.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Dan Fowler was secretly videotaped laughing about Gustav hitting New Orleans as the RNC was about to start, saying, "Obviously, it shows God is on our side ... Everything's cool." Michael Moore made similar comments to Keith Olbermann.

As I rode in the CQ bus over to the Republican National Convention site today, I saw a group of protesters walking down Market St. carrying a flag-draped coffin. My first question was, "Where is the 'protest cage' that was in use at the Dem convention?" After getting checked into my workspace, I headed back out to see where the protesters were at.

A group of police officers pointed me toward 7th Street, where I could find the "protest triangle." When I got to 7th, the police officers on the scene pointed me back to where I'd come from saying there was no protest triangle/cage/area. Back near the main convention security checkpoint I was told by yet another officer, "We got sued over that [protest cage]. It's my job to protect their First Amendment Rights, so if they want to run around and yell, I'm going to make sure they get to do that."

It's pretty ironic that the Republicans are allowing for more freedom of dissent then their Democratic counterparts. The cage in Denver was a sad sight to behold. Don't expect Republicans to get much credit for it, but kudos to them if they are in fact taking a more freedom-oriented approach to their own critics. Counter-programming at its best.

UPDATE: Click to the 1:50 mark to see the Dems' protest cage. I find most protesters annoying, so it's got to be pretty bad if I'm feeling sorry for them: