GOP Convention Notes
McCain Promises Change When Accepting GOP Nomination
By Courtney Lowery, 9-04-08
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Sen. John McCain just gave his acceptance speech in St. Paul, focusing his address on change—taking back Washington and telling his fellow Republicans that the party had “lost the trust of the American people.”
That trust was lost, he said, when some Republicans “gave in to the temptations of corruption.” He later touted his battle against lobbyists, referring in passing to Jack Abramoff, who coincidentally, was sentenced today to four years in prison.
One of McCain’s more powerful quotes:
“Let me offer an advance warning to the old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first-country-second Washington crowd: Change is coming.”
The theme of McCain’s speech, as was the theme of the entire convention, was that of dedication and selfless work for country and he punctuated that sentiment by telling the story of his capture and time spent imprisoned in Vietnam. He also talked of his father’s tour in Vietnam and his grandfather’s death after coming home from the war.
“I hate war. It’s terrible beyond imagination,” McCain said. “I’m running for president to keep the country I love safe and prevent other families from risking their loved ones in war as my family has. I will draw on all my experience with the world and its leaders, and all the tools at our disposal—diplomatic, economic, military, and the power of our ideals—to build the foundations for a stable and enduring peace.”
As to specific Western issues, the Arizona Senator touched just briefly on energy, calling for immediate off-shore drilling, but also saying, “… we’ll build more nuclear power plants. We’ll develop clean-coal technology. We’ll increase the use of wind, tide, solar, and natural gas. We’ll encourage the development and use of flex-fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles.We must use all resources and develop all technologies necessary to rescue our economy from the damage caused by rising oil prices and restore the health of our planet.”
You can read the full transcript of the speech over at the New York Times here and read what some people are saying about the speech here at the Washington Post.
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Comments
I wonder what it would be like to be McCain now, telling that creepy George Romero-movie crowd that "change is coming!" when every one of them that is not there for misguided religious reasons, is a facet of the problem that is destroying his, and our, country.
It is like a man, oozing with sores, holding his hands out to a monstrous supersized syphilis spirochete, and saying, "let's change together, let's save our family."
And I've much admired Senator McCain, until eighteen months ago. He was fresh air in the face of the stale venal right wing, and at least a partial antidote to the "we know better than you do" nanny state liberty-despising Hillaries of the nation.
What will it take, in our bewildered, powerful America, to get an Independent Party? Is it impossible?
Hal
KING: We have a history on this program that whenever the vice presidential nominee is announced, he or she appears on this show the next night. It’s been going on for quite a while. We hope that Senator McCain follows that tradition since I have a hunch he will not announce tonight who that candidate is.
But how close are we?
MCCAIN: I want to say that that vice presidential candidate will be on your show. I will not risk the wrath of Larry King. I want to assure you.
The movie did, of course, present things more amusingly than I can relate them; but, I think you get the picture. Ten to fifteen years ago, John McCain was deserving of respect; but, he is not now who he was then. The very idea of the GOP, after whining so loudly over many decades about how much better they could do if they only got control and then causing so much damage once they did, now running on anything like "change" or "reform" is worse than ludicrous; it's a disgusting abdication of the very principles of responsibility and accountability that they have trumpeted ad nauseum. With this latest turn of the worm, the GOP is truly now just a hypocritical caricature.
McSame has, with few exceptions, been part of that.
How can he beat up Obama for campaigning for change, then adopt the change theme himself? Does McSame really expect the American people to forget that McSame supported Bush 90 percent of the time in the past 8 years?