McCain's "Worst Speech" Panned by Pundits

John McCain's nomination speech was so flat, so disjointed, so utterly devoid of any vision or affirmative plan for the U.S. -- it's hard to say much about it, other than it sucked.

That's basically what CNN's Jeffrey Toobin was driving at when he panned it in historic proportions on Thursday, declaring it the "worst speech by a nominee" since 1980. It was, Toobin added, a "shockingly bad," "boring," "theme-less" train wreck. (More after clip.)

Another pundit, former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, said McCain's poor policy emphasis in the speech represented a missed opportunity:

Finally, former Republican White House official and uber-pundit David Gergen criticized McCain's "rerun" of "thin" policies. "I think the country is looking for fresh answers," he said. "It's hard to separate yourself out from President Bush when you essentially have the same economic policies as President Bush."

From The Nation.

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Comments

[Cathar]

Why question McCain he is a POW. Read his response to the jobless rate. Go to Junior College and I will give more tax cuts to the wealthy. What do you expect. Report facts not fiction. He VOTED 90% of the time with Bush. He is against his own tortue legislation. He was against the new GI Bill( but took credti for it). He gives us an untested VP making Obama look like Madison. Obama and Biden have provided solutions where are yours John McCain other than your all on your own unless you are wealthy.

[piquet]

didn't need the ambien after that one...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz like a baby

[lewes17266]

he read words that were prepared for him to read
he stood there and read
palin did the same thing
Barack Obama has talent he is a gifted speaker is a graduate of Columbia and Harvard Law and is married to a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law It is laughable that Obama and Biden are being compared to McCain and Palin at all but I know that a lot of America does not see what is going on and how the Republicans are marketing this woman to a very gullible and unsophisticated crowd of people
Obama has merit and McCain has pretense

[bronceye]

Didn't you hear Huckabee? He said America doesn't want a smart president. He said that if we wanted a smart pres., we would get one from Harvard(obvious slam to Yale, at best).

[voicemania]

Oh, I was expecting Toobin to praise the speech. Come on!

[lucite]

Lunesta has nothing over on McCain.

[KenNY]

First part of speech was repetitive to earlier messages, e.g. John's capture and torture in North Vietnam. There were some ideas for increasing employment, but they were same as Bush proposed several years ago. It was boring and uninteresting speech.

[SpoxLogic]

For the stopped up:
"For people suffering from constipation, the McCain 2008 POTUS acceptance speech is the perfect remedy."

For the bulemics:
"Need to purge after some heavy binging? You no longer need to put your fingers down your throats - who knows where those things have been. Just watch the McCain 2008 POTUS acceptance speech."

[glblvw]

One day they trash Obama , project GOP image of last eight years (divisive politics, feed to the republican right), next day they talk about change, not shouting at each other..it is as if they are trying to shore up the base at the same time courting independents...will it work? There is not central theme to the convention...atleast, democrats stuck to the change and 4 more years if mccain is elected...

[Peddler]

He can't even hoodwink correctly......

[Blain]

It won't matter how well McCain can deliver a speech because the strategy is to distract voters with the cultural divide that Palin represents. It was very successful for Bush. Even though he was a poor speaker that was explained away as "he's a plain spoken man but he shares your values". Simultaneously John McCain was casted as the elitist windsurfer with a billionaire wife who was out of touch with small town America. Sound familiar? It's time for Dems to stay on message and pound McCain with the Republicans 8 year record. I love the way they are trying to explain away the debacle of the Iraq war by claiming that the surge has worked. After spending a trillion dollars and 4000 American lives on a war that we were lied into, you don't get credit when you finally figure a way out of the 5 year mess that you got us into. Ariana is right, the republicans are counting on American amnesia to win this election. It's worked before, who knows?

[zekeandrick]

What I don't hear anyone saying is that the surge is just a smaller version of what was recommended by Gen. Shinsecki AND Colin Powell more than 5 years ago- Shinsecki was retired and Powell was out after the first 4 years of this foreign policy debacle.

If Gen Petraus is the wonderkind that everyone says he is, why wasn't he running the show from the very beginning???

[iluvsam]

Can the Dems NOW get some negative ads out there please? I just heard Robert Gibs on NPR say that the Obama camp IS NOT going to go after Pali n.

UGH. I'm sick of their not fighting.

[rcwblessed]

I think voters are starting to see and appreciate the drastic differences between the types of campaigns that Obama and McCain are running, positive vs. negative, respectively. After listening to the pathetic speeches by Palin and McCain, voters should clearly see that their negative campaign is completely devoid of polices that will move our country forward.

In contrast, I believe Obama's positive campaign which sticks to the issues vs. character assassination of their opponents, is helping to keep him ahead in the polls.

Bottom line: McCain's campaign has no substance.

[AngloAmerican]

Here is the link to Gergens full response, under title "McCain Shows He Will Be Formidable"

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/04/gergen-mccain-shows-he-will-be-formidable/

In regards to Toobin, of the CNN analysts, only Toobin and Dana Bash panned the speech, Donna Brazile, John King, Tara Wall and Candy Crowley all praised the speech.

[AngloAmerican]

Your post is completely misleading. You selectively quoted the one negative passage in Gergen's analysis. You know Gergen rated the speech as an "A" right?

The selective quoting on the front page is also ridiculous. They quote national review panning the speech, that was one blogger who was in the convention hall where it was apparently hard to hear McCain. NR Editor Rich Lowry praised the speech as did Victor Davis Hanson and Newt Gingrich
Halperin at Time gave it a B+, Paul Begala gave a B-, which is high praise coming from the normally hard to impress Begala. Borger and Sanchez, also at CNN rated the speech a B and A- respectively. Only Roland Martin gave it a poor grade (He gave Palin's speech an A, though I'm sure that wasnt mentioned here)

Your quote from Toobin is also selective.

[rgersmrk]

This is what I got from the RNC....

McCain/Palin 2004!

[voicemania]

What I got from the speech was this: McCain is a man who truly loves his country, and will do everything in his power as President to protect its citizens.
He will not allow the Supreme Court to legislate from the bench.
He will not allow the government to tax the industrious and successful to support a welfare state.
He will not allow our public schools to be bullied and controlled by the teachers unions.
He will not support the ludicrous idea of government-run healthcare.
His tax policies will encourage investment and stimulate growth, creating jobs.
He will reform the archaic unemployment system.
OK, maybe he is not Demosthenes, but he is solid and strong.
He won't be pushed around by anyone.