Blogging from 10,000 feet

I’m on a flight from Los Angeles to Nashville. My company had me out here for a few days attending an awards show (nice!). So, on the flight back I’m taking some time to blog about the wrap-up of the Republican National Convention.

Unfortunately, given my travel schedule and work responsibilities while I was out here, I didn’t see much of the convention. But, in our 24-hour news cycle world you can catch up on a lot by watching the news networks – CNN, Fox News, even MSNBC if you have the stomach for it. So, I’ll preface my comments by saying that most of my observations are coming from those sources and what I’ve read in the papers. Thanks to the 4-hour flight I have in front of me I did spend some quality time with the Wall Street Journal this morning.

On a side note, I am tiring of the news format of having one campaign advisor or party strategist from each side on every political show. All they do is spew the talking points of the day (McCain: we are the real agents of change, Obama: McCain/Palin is more of the same). The networks could save time by just having the anchor read their talking points. Just picture Brit Hume reading the news and saying “McCain claims that with his pick of Palin they are truly the ticket for change, while the Obama campaign seems to think McCain’s policies represent more of the same policies that they claim have been a failure in the current administration.” They report, you decide.

It sounds like Sarah Palin’s speech went really well. Although I’ve only heard snippets, the feedback has been positive and she attracted 37 million viewers – as compared to the 38.4 million Obama got…and she’s only our *VP* pick. I think her “hockey mom” image is really going to play well, especially in some of the northern state working class areas of Michigan, Minnesota, the Dakotas, etc. (although McCain already is ahead in many of those states, Michigan would be huge if they could win there).

The more I think about it, the more I like the pick of Palin, for a few reasons: 1) Palin shored up the conservative base for McCain, while the pick also enhances his “maverick” status since he chose someone who is the definition of a Washington outsider. 2) By shoring up that conservative base McCain can play more to his centrist tendencies and hopefully draw in some of those undecided voters that are definitely going to decide this election. He will need a lot of those undecideds to offset the possible bump Obama could get from all those young voters that registered in the primaries (if the young voters actually show up on election day…who knows). 3) While Palin’s inexperience could be an issue, any time it has been brought up, the next breath always includes a reference to Obama’s similar lack of experience and the observation that at least she is only the VP pick, not the president. I don’t know if the McCain people were clever enough to consider this when picking her, but if so they are smarter than we might be giving them credit for. When I’ve heard all the Democratic talking heads say that “McCain’s pick takes away his main argument about experience” I just want to say “She’s not running for President!” and “Thank you for reiterating your candidate’s lack of experience.” 4) It does set McCain up as a legitimate “change” candidate – which is hard to do when you’ve been in the Senate as long as he has and you are in the incumbent part. But, it really makes sense when you hear the Democrat talking heads harp on their latest message of “More of the Same” after the Palin pick. Yes, if you mean that a 3rd generation war hero who has constantly ticked his own party off and is admittedly at his best in town hall-style meetings instead of with a podium and teleprompter, and his running mate, the well-spoken female governor of the most remote US state who has constantly thumbed her nose at her own party, is just like a southern U.S. governor and son of an ex-President with questionable verbal communication skills who chose as his running mate an inveterate DC insider, then yes, it is “more of the same”. Wha?

Besides all that, I think it’s noteworthy that all of the “conversation” in the last week or so has been around the McCain-Palin ticket. Yes, the Republican convention was going on during that time, so it should be that way, but it still seemed that everyone talked about Obama’s speech for about 1 day then the political conversation was all about McCain. Even Hurricane Gustav helped a little because all the news coverage mentioned how the Republicans were curtailing their convention so the emergency could be handled appropriately (and it curtailed the days when W was going to speak, which kinda helps defend against Obama’s attacks that McCain is running for Bush’s third term). I’ve read stories about Obama and Biden campaigning, but the coverage has been about their responses to Palin and/or what the McCain campaign is saying. This is what the media calls “controlling the conversation” and if McCain continues to do it, it will be good for him.

Speaking of Gustav, when do you think we’ll start hearing the positive news stories about FEMA’s preparedness, the orderliness of the evacuation plan and the overall improvement of the Bush Administration’s response to these kinds of emergencies? Don’t hold your breath. But, maybe at the least it will take away any talking points the Dems were using about Katrina and using it as another example of the Republicans’ inability to govern.

That’s all for now. We go on vacation next week and I usually try to go on radio silence when I’m on vacation, but I may try to sneak in a blog or two while I’m checking fantasy football scores and what not…

Listening to: “That’s Not My Name” by The Ting Tings, “Can’t Believe It” by T-Pain, Vampire Weekend