Here's EJ Dionne on John McCain's acceptance speech last night (not to mention his entire campaign):

Elegy for a Maverick

By E. J. Dionne Jr. / Friday, September 5, 2008; A21

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Once upon a time, John McCain promised to be a different kind of politician and a different kind of Republican. He was about straight talk, reform and nonpartisanship, a resolute foe of the slashing politics of the slaughterhouse.

McCain tried to get voters to remember that man in his acceptance speech last night, the one who "worked with members of both parties to fix the problems that need to be fixed." But that man has disappeared.

The stage in the middle of the cavernous Xcel Energy Center was rearranged so McCain could conjure the feel of the town hall meetings he loves as he laced into "partisan rancor" and "the Washington crowd." Yet a set change could not disguise the fact that this convention -- including the big speech Wednesday by his running mate, Sarah Palin -- dripped with divisive ridicule as speaker after speaker worked to aggravate the country's cultural schisms and replay worn-out harangues against weak liberals.

The Republican crowd here has gleefully played into the worst stereotypes of their party as a privileged class resistant to change.

When Rudy Giuliani referred to Barack Obama's past as a "community organizer" Wednesday, the crowd broke into ugly, patronizing laughter. These, presumably, are people who never needed a neighborhood advocate. Imagine if Democrats ever reacted that way to someone who worked as an entrepreneur or a church leader.

And it's unlikely that even a convention of the American Petroleum Institute would erupt into raucous chants of "drill, baby, drill!"

McCain could not change his party, so he changed himself. McCain has pandered to a Republican right wing he once disdained on issue after issue, from oil drilling to immigration to tax cuts for the wealthy.

...

Folks, we've ordered some Obama-Biden Yard signs.  As you know, they're not free, and we'll need to ask for a little donation to cover our costs, but we want you to have them and show your support.  I don't yet know exactly what they'll look like (Tom took care of the order and I forgot to ask which signs they are...), but I'm sure they'll be sharp, and you'll want to have one.

They're supposed to be here in another week or so, around mid-September.  Stay tuned.  I'll update you as details become available...

Steve

GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin debuted on the national stage last night and gave a terrific attack speech.  She's clearly an accomplished, comfortable speaker and enjoying her role.

It's fresh, attractive packaging, but I do hope people look past the presentation and realize that she's offering the same tired right-wing ideology we've endured for the last eight years.

Here are a few reactions from around the web.

Democratic VP Candidate Joe Biden (emphasis added):

"Well, my plane was landing. I only caught the last two-thirds of the speech, but I was impressed. I think it was a skillfully delivered political speech with confidence and directness and so I think she did what she was supposed to do. I was impressed.

"I was also impressed by what I didn't hear in the speech. I didn't hear a word--didn't hear the phrase middle class mentioned, I didn't hear a word about health care. I didn't hear a single word about what we're going to do about the housing crisis, college education, all the things that the middle class is being burdened by now.

"I didn't hear the words Afghanistan or Pakistan where al-Qaeda lives and bin Laden resides, so I also, you know, there was a deafening silence about the hole that the Republicans have dug us into and any specific answers to how the McCain-Palin ticket is going to get us out of that hole."

• Democratic Strategist: Red Meat Banquet 

Well, it took a while, but the Republican National Convention sure woke up last night, inspired by Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin into a howling, sneering, fist-shaking state of rage at the temerity of Barack Obama in offering himself for the presidency.

...

The Obama campaign quickly got out a very thorough truth-squad piece on the various attack lines deployed by Palin. Suffice it to say that those lines spanned the spectrum from light snarky jibes to distortions of Obama's record and views, to bold-faced lies. Palin's already getting hammered near and far for her fully rebuttable claim that she fought the "Bridge to Nowhere," and to a lesser extent, for her naked pander to the parents of special-needs children (not the best appeal to make explicitly, given her record in Alaska). But more important in the long run are the assertions both she and Giuliani made about Obama's lack of legislative accomplishments (much of the Obama truth-squad document is composed of a long list of these), and the gross mischaracterization of his tax proposals, which would actually cut taxes for families earning less than $250,000.

On a much broader front, the speeches we've heard in St. Paul are remarkable for how little they've involved discussions of policy, particularly on the economy.

I watched Sarah Palin and Rudy Guiliani last night at the Republican Convention mocking Barack Obama's youthful experience as a community organizer and thought it was a sour note.  Obama got a chance to respond to that barb today (via Political Animal):

IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS, REDUX.... Following up on earlier item, a CBS News reporter asked Barack Obama today, at a press briefing in central Pennsylvania, "Community organizer -- what was your reaction to that but also how is that relevant experience to the presidency?" I found the response fairly compelling.

"This is very curious," Obama said. "So this is work I did [20] years ago. They haven't talked about the fact that I was a civil rights lawyer; they haven't talked about the fact that I taught constitutional law; they haven't talked about my work in the state legislature or in the United States Senate. They're talking about the three years of work that I did right out of college as if I'm making the leap from two or three years out of college into the presidency.

"So, look, I would argue that doing work in the community to try to create jobs, to bring people together, to rejuvenate communities that have fallen on hard times, to set up job training programs in areas that have been hard hit when the steel plants closed. That that's relevant only in understanding where I'm coming from, who I believe in, who I'm fighting for and why I'm in this race. And the question I have for them is that why would that kind of work be ridiculous? Who are they fighting for? What are they are advocating for? They think that the lives of those folks who are struggling each and every day, that working with them to try to improve their lives is somehow not relevant to the presidency?

"I think maybe that's the problem -- that's part of why they're out of touch and they don't get it 'cause they haven't spent much time working on behalf of those folks."

My hunch is Republicans will keep mocking community organizers, as if this is somehow worthy of denigration, but Obama's response sounded like the right one.

I hope you watched Obama's acceptance speech tonight.  It was powerful.  Here's a transcript.  I'll try to remember to add a video link too, sometime tomorrow.

Josh Marshall gave us this by way of initial reaction:

Initial Thoughts

from Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall by Josh Marshall

I thought this was a very strong speech. About exactly what was needed. It was a strong speech. He made the case for himself; he laid out clear policy goals; and he aggressively set forth the stakes of the campaign. He made the case against John McCain while not attacking his character -- which makes a clear contrast with McCain's aggressively personal, denigrating campaign strategy.

I've heard a few people say that he seemed to hold back from giving the soaring speech he might have given. But I suspect that was intentional and I think a good decision. Meta-themes and tonality form the deeper structure of political communication. And the aim of this speech was not eloquence but strength.

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And Kevin Drum had this reaction:

Obama's Speech

from Kevin Drum - Mother Jones

OBAMA'S SPEECH....That was a helluva speech, wasn't it? Damn. Here were my two favorite parts. First this:

It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy — give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is — you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care?

From Steve Benen at Political Animal:

What Race is Brokaw Watching?

...

I've been working on a project during the campaign, chronicling John McCain's flip-flops. As of now, the grand total stands at 74 reversals, but just as importantly, the vast majority of the reversals were part of a coordinated effort to reinvent McCain in order to shamelessly pander to the Republican base, abandoning nearly all of the positions that people like Brokaw admired so much eight years ago.

As Kevin noted, "It's not just that McCain has changed a lot of his positions, it's the fact that he's so plainly changed them purely for the sake of political expediency."

Quite right. In order to con Republican voters into supporting his campaign, McCain reversed course on practically every pillar of the GOP policy agenda, including taxes, energy, the role of social conservatives, gun control, abortion rights, and immigration. No presidential nominee in modern U.S. political history has reinvented himself more than John McCain.

Of course, if McCain has Brokaw fooled, and Brokaw is a veteran journalist and the host of "Meet the Press," imagine how easy it is for McCain to con the typical American voter who doesn't have time to pay attention to the ins and outs of politics.

Approve This Message

08.15.08 -- 8:29PM

By Josh Marshall

A lot of you have probably seen this video. It's an amateur/independent pro-Obama, anti-McCain ad. There are a few elements -- tonal stuff -- that would have to be changed for a campaign to run something like this. But it's very good. The makings of a killer ad ...

Swift Boat Economics

by: Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Former Senator-turned-lobbyist Phil Gramm (left) served as economic policy adviser to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign until he made disparaging remarks about Americans facing economic hardships. (Photo: Politico / AP)