What is your vote based on, Dan?

His biggest obstacle is his party. Where has he been the last eight years? If so accomplished, why could he not lead his own party away from their debacle? Even now he has to jump in front of the party rather than lead them to where they need to be. Even as he decried self-serving partisan politicians, his audience didn't recognize themselves in the description. No, I don't think he knows that much economics, but he does believe govt should operate differently.

Good analysis...I thought he could have used some loftier rhetoric.

Hers my question, how does he constantly refer to reaching across party lines. Whilst last night they were all stirred up sticking the boots into the Dems? Seems like a contradiction, or do they have the memories of goldfish?

Relevant article
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/business/31view.html?_r=1&em=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1220588533-TflE7HO1J8k+PHPV/Dhs5w&oref=slogin

The two Great Partisan Divides combine to suggest that, if history is a guide, an Obama victory in November would lead to faster economic growth with less inequality, while a McCain victory would lead to slower economic growth with more inequality. Which part of the Obama menu don’t you like?

"Here’s the thing: he knows that the market economy largely operates according to the former principle and not the latter principle, right?"

I suppose the idea is that if you're in politics, you work for the national interest, and everyone who wants to work in their self interest should stick to the private sector.

Of course, the real world isn't as simple as that, but I don't see those beliefs as necessarily contradictory. After all, the structure of the military is awfully different from the society it's protecting too.

McCain spent plenty of time bashing politicians and his opponents for acting in their self-interest, while he works for the national interest.

He looks out for the national interest? Really? There is such much corruption and wasteful spending re: Iraq and not a word from McCain. Hell, what about his recent kissing of Falwell and Dobson's ring? His pick of Palin was an obvious pander to Dobson.

Convention speeches are designed to appeal to the faithful, generating lots of goodwill among the delegates present in order to show the TV audience a united party excited about their candidate and put an audio-visual experience into the senses and minds of the undecided voters watching that the candidate is really the better choice. How well McCain succeeded in doing that will not be fully known until November. Those who berate either candidate for not giving laundry list speeches about the details of their programs and platforms at the conventions are unclear on the concept of the convention speech. John McCain gave a better speech than I expected. He is not known for his lofty rhetoric but rather for his "folksy" Trumanesque plain speech. (Or straight talk if you prefer.) Mr. Obama's speech was disappointing to many because they had very high expectations and he delivered a standard convention speech. He set himself up to disappoint his followers by the whole Invesco field set-up. Notice the contrast there--McCain tried to be more intimate and generate a pseudo-Town Hall atmosphere, while Barry went for the whole rock star approach. Personally, I'm voting for president, not "most entertaining." I'm also not voting for savior, that's been covered already, thank you very much.

McCain, in spirit, doesn't fit with the rest of the GOP. Notice the tepid audience response when he mentions working in a bipartisan manner? Core Republicans, like Sarah Palin, Giuliani, and Romney, want ideological purity not bargaining and compromise with the likes of Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy.

I _like_ McCain. I'm not planning on voting for him but I genuinely am persuadable.
That said, you're bang on on mentioning military commanders. Not only is it wrong, it's downright irresponsible. Military personnel oughtn't to associate themselves (as military; what they do off duty in their capacity as private citizens is different) with a politician or party and Petraeus in particular seems scrupulous about it. In particular here both candidates are Senators and damn well no officer should be endorsing one or the other, at least not in a way that references his capacity and function as a soldier. McCain so publicly embracing that one soldier and that one soldier's character puts Petraeus, potentially, in a really awkward spot. Petraeus is probably savvy enough to get out of it, but it's still a bit irresponsible of McCain.

You say you prefer McCain because Obama would protect old industries while McCain would prepare citizens for new industries. Meanwhile, Obama talks about specific ways and funding numbers for both reforming old industries and creating new ones. McCain merely states that he will prepare citizens for new industries but Obama won't, and you go for that?

Good point Neil -

Dan, like your analysis a lot, but what the hell does preparing citizens for new industries mean? Are we going to send a bunch of laid off factory workers to a community college at the tax payer's expense to learn how to be software engineers? Good Luck. There is a significant chunk of the population that is not cut out for the information age (left side of the bell curve) and they were part of the middle class when we had an industrial base. Now we expect high school drop outs who once had decent factory jobs to be engineers and programmers. Hell, we don't even hire American college grads to do that, we prefer lower paid Indians on work visas - just listen to Bill Gates. It is time globalists took a look at the real impact of Globalization, and how it actually impacts American communities, rather than just looking at the impact on GNP and their IRAs.

Neil and Chris basically summed up my thoughts on the whole new economy / old economy thing. Obama's focus seems to be in aiding investment in new technology and job training.

Some of his rhetoric at times has made me a bit nervous (esp. the NAFTA attacks), but all in all, the old / new economy thing falls to Obama pretty squarely for me.

What scares the crap out of me if McCain wins: If/when Grandpa McCain kicks the bucket that nut Palin will be POTUS. God help us...

To continue what Neil, Chris, and Eric said (How long can this go?) McCain policy stances lacks a lot of substance which is why he doesn't just focus on Obama but his entire campagin is based around Obama. The guy just doesn't come up with a lot ideas new or old.

As someone who is sympathetic to the general ideological orientation of the republicans, I cannot express strongly enough how disappointing and personally upsetting it is to watch the bizarre anti-intellectual movement in the party. All politics is local, right? Well, as someone who grew up in a small town in North Dakota and was fortunate enough to earn a place at an Ivy League university, I can tell you that you never forget where you came from - and for someone like me or Barack Obama, you are constantly reminded of your low origins at a place like Princeton by the true core constituency of the Republican party - the country club millionaires. It is the height of arrogance to believe that observers will buy the GOP as the party of the humble. It is far, far more worrying that, at a time when high achievement and elite education are so essential to both governing and our ability to compete with rising BRIC countries, the GOP wants to throw spitballs at the nerds (like me) who worked incredibly hard to earn our spots at top universities. This is simply a cynical strategy to take advantage of the resentments of people who have been left behind by the forces of globalization. But I don't think it will work - the people I grew up with in ND aren't buying this line - they've seen the consequences of a middling mind over the last eight years and are ready to trust someone like Obama, who had no advantages in early life and rose, through sheer skill, to such an elevated position. I like McCain on a personal level - I certainly don't resent him for the advantages his privileged upbringing conferred - but the message from the party is now muddled and, frankly, stupid.

I'm a different Neil from the one above, just to clarify (not that it matters)

Service is, well, service. When you get paid for activities as a community organizer or driving the snowplow then it is work. We often get more back from service then we put in but we don't get a check.

Sanjay:
It is not surprising. Petraeus has been on Hugh Hewitt's show before.

Neil(the North Dakota native):
Is that why Obama was up in North Dakota in the last poll? What's funny about ND is that both Senators and its lone Rep are all Democrats, yet it hasn't voted Democratic in a Presidential election in ages. If McCain can't win ND easily, he's toast.

I find it very interesting how hard McCain is trying to co-opt the "change" language to refer to him. And at the same time he's trying to claim he will be a fiscal budget-cutter (Palin wasn't as governor, if you look at the state's finances carefully, and more time in Iraq & tax cuts won't do McCain well in this area). Oh yes, and now we're going to ask for community service but denigrate it at the same time. It was a speech written for multiple-personality disorder.

[...] views I respect a great deal even if I do not always agree with them. And I especially took note of this post in which he assessed McCain’s speech. because while I thought it was pretty bad as far as [...]