John McCain at the RNC
A great speech, poorly executed. John McCain is just not comfortable speaking before a large crowd. He doesn't know from delivery, and those awkward, too-quick smiles make him look disingenuous. I did like parts of the speech, such as when he talked about how the Republican party lost the confidence of the American people, and when he talked about how he hates war because he's seen it firsthand, but overall the speech was choppy and low energy. (It also didn't help whenever they cut away to delegates with misspelled signs like "MAVRICK." Maybe school vouchers will help!)

In the end, the Democratic National Convention belonged to their presidential candidate, Barack Obama, but the Republican National Convention belonged to their vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. It's funny to think that just a week ago I was wondering if history would view her selection as the end of the McCain ticket, at least with the Republican base, when in fact she might be what saves it.

You know, maybe this makes me crazy, but a lot has been made of Palin being an Alaskan beauty pageant finalist, yet the one at the RNC who really cranks my erector set is Cindy McCain. Yes, I know she's 54, and I'm well aware that she's married, but I would totally go crazy on her!

Anyway, now that the conventions are over, it's back to business as usual. It's sixty days to the general election, and as we know, that's plenty of time for either side to screw up big time and lose whatever post-convention bumps they gained.