Remains To Be Seen

I'm frankly surprised that McCain's speech got such a big audience, marginally larger than Obama's. I suspect that there was little overlap in the two audiences, but I could be wrong about that, too.

However, it remains to be seen whether this audience was a plus for McCain, because the reviews on his speech continue to be bad. Joe Conason in Salon is the latest: John McCain deserved much better from his campaign staff than he got when they handed him that jumbled convention speech and set him out onto that strange stage. Even though many of the men and women who work for him undeniably belong to that "old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second Washington crowd" he scorns, there can be no doubt that they love him, so they should not have let him down so badly. His staff and advisors have had two years to prepare for that moment -- and they gave him words that literally put people to sleep.

The polls so far show some tightening, with Obama still ahead. Monday is the traditional day to measure the bounce. Then I guess polls taken a week after that tell us more about where the race actually is, especially the next round of state polls (the ones coming out now are quite favorable for Obama.)

Apparently Sarah Palin has some studying up to do before she meets the press. Word now that the Alaska investigation that the McCainites are trying to slow down may actually be speeded up.

This could be the beginning of a rebound for the GOPers, or it could be their high water mark, as good as it's going to get. Unemployment topped 6% today, a powerful number. It could be that the GOPer America is not just dying but dead, with just the remains to be seen.