I didn’t think the speech was horrible. The problem with Sen Dole in 1996 is that Dole tried to be someone he wasn’t.
Despite my disagreements with McCain, McCain is the only adult in this race at the top of the ticket. I thought he did that last night.
If you disagree with the content, fine, we are free to do so. John McCain isn’t going to win the election pretending
to be some one else. McCain was classy and he did point differences between him and the “anointed” one.
He called him out on that but you probably missed it if you turned it off half way through.
But you know what? I'm not sure that's who "McCain is." I remember voting for him as a congressman, and first time as an Az senator. He was never a "maverick" back then. This whole "maverick" business didn't start until 1999 when he saw that Bush was the favorite of the GOP "establishment" (not that that is a bad thing), and except for the surge he has essentially run against Bush for 8 years, briefly campaigning for him in 2004.
Consider this: why does he almost exclusively (except Obama) criticize Republicans, but seldom Dems by name? I think it's because down deep, he DOES think Republicans are "better" than that, rather than "all the same" as the maverick talk suggests. Dunno. But I find him a paradox: he's run a great campaign up to that point, then reverted to form.