A Failure of Leadership

But McCain once again failed to explain how his first term would be substantively different from Bush's last two. Pretty much every one of promises sounded like ones Bush has made himself -- including the promise to be a uniter, not a divider.

And as I've been writing in the last couple days, the entire convention seemed happier trying to pretend Bush didn't even exist.

Peter Baker writes in the New York Times that "delegates on Thursday were shown a video about the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that included a picture of Rudolph W. Giuliani and Donald H. Rumsfeld but none of Mr. Bush, whose presidency was singularly shaped by that day. . . .

"In his acceptance speech shortly afterward, Mr. McCain thanked 'the president,' without naming him, for leading the country 'in those dark days'. . . . But he made no further reference to Mr. Bush, and when it came to the improved security in Iraq over the last year, he credited 'the leadership of a brilliant general, David Petraeus.'"

But as Adam Nagourney and Michael Cooper write in the New York Times, McCain "is aligned with Mr. Bush on two of the biggest issues facing the country: the Iraq war and the economy."

David Gergen said on CNN: "I did not think that the substantive part of the speech worked very well, it was mostly a re-run, a retread of a lot of old Republican ideas that have brought us to where we are now. I think the country is looking for fresh answers. It's hard to separate yourself out from President Bush when you essentially have the same economic policies as President Bush."

Tom Shales writes in The Washington Post: "He used the word 'change' at least 10 times in his bombastic speech -- the convention's emotional climax -- but since the Republicans have controlled the White House for the past eight years, what does McCain want to change from? And to? It really is an audacious ploy, to tell people that the country's got to correct the mistakes made by a political party when that's the very party you represent.

"It's like staging a revolution against yourself -- saying that the Republicans have got to go so the Republicans can move in and clean up the mess."

And the New York Times editorial board argues: "Rather than remaking George W. Bush's Republican Party in his own image, Mr. McCain allowed the practitioners of the politics of fear and division to run the show."

Peter Wallsten and Doyle McManus write in the Los Angeles Times: "Cultural affinities, which President Bush played on heavily to paint 2004 Democratic nominee John F. Kerry as elite and out of touch, are now central to the campaign strategy of GOP presidential nominee John McCain. . . .

"The strategy worked for Bush four years ago. Yet its effectiveness this year is uncertain. Democratic voter registration has surged in several battleground states, and voters worried about the economy say they generally favor Democrats over Republicans. The economy, rather than any cultural issues, consistently ranks highest among voter concerns. But GOP strategists believe that despite those disadvantages, the public remains culturally conservative."

Flashback

Mark Silva, blogging for the Chicago Tribune, reminds us: "Eight years ago, at the Republican Party's convention in Philadelphia, McCain was playing a completely different role: Conceding his party's presidential nomination to George W. Bush. McCain addressed that convention with these words: