My Thought on the McCain Speech

"Meh, the book was so much better..."

When I got up this morning, I was interested in how J. McCain's speech went over. The first link I got to was a transcript of the speech. So I sat down and read it. And I thought it was pretty good. I read the humor of it, and caught the barbs. I thought it was pretty to the point and hit some of the right notes. The headlines didn't seem to think it was so great, but I didn't really think of it much.

A couple of hours later, a friend sent me an IM asking me about what I thought of the speech. He said McCain was good, so I went out and streamed the video and set out 45 minutes of my day.

I was not impressed. Now, I know. J. McCain's is not the natural orator of a Reagan, Clinton, Obama, or Palin. But for about 30 mintues, it was hard for me to watch it. I would cringe when McCain smiled because it looked so fake. The cheers from the audience stepped on his lines. And he would repeate the ends of sentences twice like Jimmy Two Times from GoodFellas.

But that last 15 minutes....it was deep, it was personal, and it was powerful. As I watched it, I was moved. I knew the story from the transcript, but hearing it in his own words was emotional.

Still, I don't think he will be elected on his oratory performance anyway. I mean, how crazy would we have to be to vote for someone who can read a speech well....?