McCain Fails the Test

I hadn't intended to stay up last night to watch John McCain's speech, but you know what it's like. It gets to 1am and you get seduced by the O'Reilly Factor on Fox, and before you know it it's nearly time for McCain.

At first I thought his speech was quietly impressive, but as it went on ... and on ... I am afraid it became quietly unimpressive. It reminded me of Bob Dole's Convention speech in 1996. And look what happened to him.

It was choppy, disjointed, too impersonal (apart from the Vietnam bits), there was little connection and he made the fatal mistake of linking himself to Bush almost at the start. I didn't feel that he painted a vision for the country and failed to distinguish himself from Obama in any meaningful way. He showed no executive instinct beyond the usual platitudes of promising to reform Washington - which all candidates promise and then never do.

Thirty seven million American households watched Sarah Palin on Tuesday, more than for the final of Pop Idol. I doubt whether McCain will have matched that, and if he did, I doubt whether they were still watching at the end. I have to admit I fell asleep by the end.

Of course, he was never going to match Sarah Palin's stellar performance, and it was unrealistic to expect him to. But many people will have felt a sense of anti climax watching McCain last night. He will need to do much better in the presidential debates.

The Spectator Americano blog dissects the speech in detail, and comes to similar conclusions.

McCain Shows His Class

A few hours before Obama rose to speak in Denver, John McCain put out this rather surprising campaign ad. It won't win him a single extra vote, but it was the right thing to do.

Alexis Carrington-Colby-Dexter on John McCain

From Joan Collins' diary in The Spectator...

"John McCain really needs to do something about his pallor. His complexion is more translucent than Nicole Kidman's".

She hasn't lost it, has she?

Could Crist Be the Saviour of the Republican Party?

Could the Republican Party be approaching the abyss? The Sunday Times reports today that John McCain's denials of a relationship with a blonde lobbyist are starting to unravel. Although the content of the article doesn't quite match up to the headline, it's telling that McCain is quoted as saying: " We still don't know how this whole thing ends up". Let's look into a counterfactually interesting abyss. What would happen if McCain is hown to have told an untruth about his fidelity? The likelihood is that he would have to abandon his campaign. What happens then?

The Republicans would be without a presidential nominee. No one seriously believes Mike Huckabee, the only other candidate left in the race, would be a credible candidate. So who would they turn to? Rudy Giuliani? Not very likely after his appalling campaign. Mitt Romney? Highly probable, but he's disliked and mistrusted by many members of the Republican establishment who would see it as their role to make a recomendation to the Convention in September.

A very likely scenario is one where the party looks to a popular State Governor to carry the torch. And who better than the incredibly popular Governor of Florida? Step forward Charlie Crist.

OK, enough of the counterfactuals, but make no mistake Crist is the coming man of the Republican Party. Whatever the outcome this November, expect him to be a candidate in 2012.

Do Al Qaeda Want McCain To Win?

Yes, according to BBC America Correspondent Justin Webb. He writes on his blog today...

Islamic terrorists want war. They want suffering - among others and their own people alike. They would surely surmise that McCain will give them what they want. Bin Laden himself intervened with what many thought was the effect of keeping President Bush in power in 2004 with that weird tape just before the poll. I think al-Qaeda would back McCain - that is not an argument for or against America backing him, but it seems to me that the vague assumption that the terrorists would back a lefty is lazy thinking...

Quite an astonishing thing for a BBC reporter to say, even on his own blog.

Hattip Centre Right.com

Mitt Romney Has the 'Big Mo'

What better way to spend half an hour waiting for a plane back to London than share my thoughts on the state of the 2008 Republican presidential race with you following my week in Washington DC.

Let me say from the outset that Rudy Guiliani was - and is - my preferred candidate on the Republican side. However, his speech at CPAC yesterday, which I witnessed, was not the speech of a serious presidential candidate. It was a rehash of a speech given to business audiences about how to turn round failing organisations - in his case New York City. It had its moments but in general was too wooden, too conversational and too centred on the past rather than offering a vision for the future.

It also contained very little for the very conservative audience. They were seeking reassurance on their litmus test issues if gun control, what they call 'traditional marriage' and abortion. Reassurance came there none. Now from my point of view that was a good thing, but he needed to find someway of walking a socially conservative tightrope but failed to do so. He made a vague reference to the 80 per cent of things which united him and them, but that was about it. A profoundly disappointing performance from the front runner.

If organisation was anything to go by Governor Mitt Romney and Senator Sam Brownback would be the two frontrunners. They blitzed CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) with their stickers and posters leaving the others in their wake. John McCain not only did not speak but didn't even have a stand any supporters there at all. Giuliani had no campaign organisation there either - his supporters had to draw their own posters themselves.

Mitt Romney was the candidate to emerge from the event with the 'Big Mo'. His speech hit all the buttons, he seems to be able to attract support from all parts of the Republican Party and he seems to be pushing the same message of hope and optimism that Barack Obama is espousing on the Democratic side. Just as important, Romney looks the part, and he has a good record in Massachussetts. He was also the candidate who attracted some negative advertising at CPAC, partly in the form of Flip Romney, a flip flopping dolphin! Romney has a, shall we say, an inconsistent record on many social issues. I left CPAC wanting to know more about Mr Romney. He could be a dark horse worth watching.

Senator Sam Brownback needs to change his name. No one has won the presidency with a surname of more than seven letters since Eisenhower, and he campaigned as Ike. It's a weird thing in this race that there are so many people with immigrant surnames. Ironically the bizarrely named Tommy Tankredo - an immigrant name if there ever was one - is campaigning on a single issue anti immigration platform. Can you imagine a President Tankredo? No, me neither.

All the candidates are trying to hitch themselves to the coattails of Ronald Reagan. Giuliani mentioned him at least 20 times in his speech and Brownback's literature is littered with references to him being a 'Reagan Conservative'. This is fine as far as it goes, but they really do need to start articulating their own visions.

My conclusions? McCain's bungled campaign announcement on Letterman left him looking old and fighting a different race to the rest. Giuliani needs to reassure the right if he is to win and Romney needs to develop a policy platform which will put the flip-flopping to rest.

But Mitt Romney emerged from CPAC as the candidate to watch.

McCain's Time Has Come and Gone

Toby Harnden has a great feature piece in today's Telegraph on the US Presidential race, concentracting in particular on John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. His analysis of McCain's position is spot on. Read it HERE.