THE RIGHT THEMES

MCCAIN SETS HIS COURSE

By Rich Lowry
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com
September 5, 2008


Ready to fight: McCain’s out to beat Obama on change.

As rhetoric, it wasn't particularly stirring - deliberately written to stay within John McCain's plain-spoken comfort zone. As a performance, it was so-so. But as a basis of the fall campaign, it puts McCain exactly where he needs to be - Johnny the Fighter, on a last mission to protect the people's interest in Washington.

McCain joined his traditional theme of patriotic service to a message of change and work-a-day populism given new oomph by his pick of the GOP's new popular hero, Sarah Palin. He buttressed these themes with his personal narrative, of sacrifice in Vietnam and of service to country rather than party in Washington.

The election isn't a contest of dueling speeches, and McCain ought to be grateful for it. He's notoriously uncomfortable with big set-speeches from a teleprompter. So convention planners put him out at the end of a long runway where he spoke from a minimalist waist-high podium. If the set-up aided in his connection to the crowd or in his delivery, it wasn't obvious.

Then again, McCain's message wasn't always congenial to these delegates. You never would've known that he's a Republican running when Republicans have held the White House for the last eight years. There was a nod to President Bush for keeping us safe at the top; after that, McCain made the case for getting "this country moving again" - typically an out-party message.

The reaction in the hall was tepid to his diagnosis of how the GOP has lost the trust of the public, and to his pledges to work cooperatively with all well-intentioned comers in a nonpartisan manner. But his real audience was out in the country, where traditional GOP politics is a tough sell this year.

Remarkably free of derisive references to his opponent, the speech was meant not so much to bury Obama as to co-opt his appeal. The heart came at the end of his description of Palin, when McCain said, "Let me offer an advance warning to the old, big-spending, do-noth- ing, me-first-country-second Washington crowd: Change is coming."

He followed up with a definition of "maverick": "What it really means is, I understand who I work for: I don't work for a party. I don't work for a special interest. I don't work for myself. I work for you."

McCain was trying to take his politics of honor - often abstract and personal - and make it about people's everyday lives. Uncharacteristically, he talked of peoples' struggles "to buy groceries, fill your gas tank and make your mortgage payment."

The selection of Palin last week and this speech signal the McCain campaign is now trying to capture the populist fighting spirit that fueled Hillary Clinton's late-primary charge against Obama.

Politically, this is shrewd. At a time of popular disgust with Washington, it's a theme that is very saleable and (as last night showed) can be made to fit McCain's unique traits. But there needs to be policy meat on the bones. His speech was the most substantive one of a largely policy-free convention - but its general passages on domestic policy won't make much of an impression.

If the speech was often dull, it was utterly sincere. "Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight," McCain urged at the end, as the delegates rose for a rousing finish.

This is the ground McCain has staked out. His clash with Obama over who can best fight for change will be the bloody crossroads of this election.