September 3
President Bush's speech to the Republican convention last night pushed all the right buttons for the party faithful, outlining an amitious programme of domestic policy and a no-holds-barred approach to foreign relations.
The President spoke for over an hour from a raised stage in the centre of the Madison Sqaure Garden auditorium, giving the symbolic impression that he is a man of the people. The particular people he is a man of, however, are very much what John Micklethwaite refers to as the "Right Nation".
How they cheered when maverick Georgia Democrat Zell Miller lambasted John Kerry's senate voting record - never mind that most of his charges were dubious to say the least.
How they cheered every time New York Governor George Pataki called to mind September 11, with the not-so-subtle inference that a Kerry presidency would leave us more vulnerable to terrorism.
For Kerry himself, his newly-revamped campaign team, including former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart, had him go on the offensive immediately after Bush's address.
Breaking with tradition by responding immediately after his opponent's convention address, Kerry said: "I'm not going to have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by those who misled America into Iraq."
While in all, this seems to have been a bad week for the Democratic challenger, the polls may yet indicate that given how polarised the nation remains, the President will likely experience not much more of a bounce from his convention - even with its excessive 9/11 trappings - than Kerry received from the Democrats gathering in Boston last month.
Meanwhile, according to CBS News, the Bush campaign is to appoint former secretary of state James Baker as their negotiator on the upcoming debate schedule, with the word that he will press for two, not three, presidential face-offs, and one vice-presidential match-up.
President Bush's speech to the Republican convention last night pushed all the right buttons for the party faithful, outlining an amitious programme of domestic policy and a no-holds-barred approach to foreign relations.
The President spoke for over an hour from a raised stage in the centre of the Madison Sqaure Garden auditorium, giving the symbolic impression that he is a man of the people. The particular people he is a man of, however, are very much what John Micklethwaite refers to as the "Right Nation".
How they cheered when maverick Georgia Democrat Zell Miller lambasted John Kerry's senate voting record - never mind that most of his charges were dubious to say the least.
How they cheered every time New York Governor George Pataki called to mind September 11, with the not-so-subtle inference that a Kerry presidency would leave us more vulnerable to terrorism.
For Kerry himself, his newly-revamped campaign team, including former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart, had him go on the offensive immediately after Bush's address.
Breaking with tradition by responding immediately after his opponent's convention address, Kerry said: "I'm not going to have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by those who misled America into Iraq."
While in all, this seems to have been a bad week for the Democratic challenger, the polls may yet indicate that given how polarised the nation remains, the President will likely experience not much more of a bounce from his convention - even with its excessive 9/11 trappings - than Kerry received from the Democrats gathering in Boston last month.
Meanwhile, according to CBS News, the Bush campaign is to appoint former secretary of state James Baker as their negotiator on the upcoming debate schedule, with the word that he will press for two, not three, presidential face-offs, and one vice-presidential match-up.
posted by Steve at 2:45 PM
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