Ok, so this post is a little late; but in fairness I had to choose between blogging and relaxing in the Florida sunshine!  I decided to watch the McCain speech with the College Republicans at Florida State University; aside from anything else I wanted to get a feel for how staunch party loyalists would react to it. 

Needless to say McCain’s speech wasn’t very well delivered, but then nobody expected it to be; McCain has always been a terrible public speaker, unable to convey sincerity.  But even with that taken into account the speech was terrible, nothing new being said, nothing to really motivate the base, and nothing to match Obama in terms of appeal to the centre.  Indeed so bad was the speech that within minutes of in starting almost every member of the college republicans sitting at the tables in front of the TV starting talking amongst themselves, paying next to no attention to the proceedings on screen. 

Only at one point did the speech stand out, with the assembled audience of College Republicans paying attention; when McCain told the story of his time as a POW.  The narrative was strong, and in that moment McCain sounded like a man destined to be president of the United States. 

All told the speech hasn’t done McCain any favours, but then it hasn’t done Obama any favours either; in poll after poll we see a statistical tie.  The long and short of it is that this race is going to be tight, and it’s anyone’s to win.  But if McCain wants to give himself the edge, he needs to learn how to motivate his base.