Friday, September 05, 2008 - Posts
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By Derek Thompson
One of many questions facing organizers of the Republican National Convention was this: In an election about change, how would the GOP reconcile the toxic unpopularity of the president without bashing George W. Bush? The resounding answer: Pretend he’s not there.
George Bush’s name was uttered once—once!—throughout the entire RNC in speeches reviewed by Slate. We crawled the transcripts of the Democratic and Republican conventions to compare how the different parties used the outgoing president’s name in their speeches. The results from the DNC were hardly surprising. In 184 mentions, Democratic speakers tied Bush to the fading economy and the bungled wars of the Middle East. But in more than half those mentions (95) they tied his name, like a political anchor, to Sen. John McCain. If you watched part of the convention, you probably caught the ubiquitous stat that McCain has voted with Bush about 95 percent of the time in the last year. Some variation of that number made 14 appearances last week.
Since the RNC was all about McCain’s maverick streak, the old guard from the White House went into hibernation mode. Dick Cheney’s name was shut out of the conventions while the veep toured Georgia. Condoleezza Rice? Nary a mention. The RNC gave the president his eight minutes from the White House lawn, but he didn’t get much praise from the podium. Three out of the four times the word Bush appears in the speech transcripts, it’s referring to wife Laura. The solitary George Bush mention came from Rudy Guiliani praising the president for his willingness to use the term evil. The overall strategy was clear: The best way to convince voters that John McCain is not George W. Bush was to ignore Bush altogether.
President Bush’s sole mention at the RNC puts him in a strange category. Other figures receiving the one-and-done treatment in St. Paul, Minn., include Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton; vanquished Democratic candidates George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, and Walter Mondale; and adorable presence/future hair stylist Piper Palin.
Here are the numbers for the RNC:
George Bush: 1 mention
Cheney: 0
And here is the final tally for the DNC:
Bush: 184 mentions (95 linked to McCain)
Cheney: 20 (19 linked to Bush)
For a fuller analysis of just the speeches by the four candidates, click here.
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The biggest moment Thursday night in the Xcel Center—the time and place of John McCain’s acceptance speech—was when the lights went down and the jumbo screens lit up with a video about … Sarah Palin. Her face flashed on-screen, and I almost reached for my earplugs. During McCain’s speech later on, I reached for my hearing aid.
For whatever reason, McCain had trouble jazzing the crowd. Maybe it was his tendency to speak over the cheering rather than wait for it to build and subside. Even 10 minutes into his speech—around the point at which Palin got comfortable Wednesday night—McCain still wasn’t hitting his rhythm. I squinted to make sure it wasn’t still Tom Ridge onstage.
It could also be that McCain’s speech was predictable—heavily biographical with an emphasis on his “maverick” streak and his service to country—whereas Palin’s was 100 percent fresh. McCain’s policy solutions sounded laundry list-y. Parts of the speech felt soporific by design. Even the weakest speeches repackage platitudes in ways we haven’t heard them before. But he pledged to “stand on your side” twice and urged people eight times to “stand up.” He promised to “fight” for various things 25 times. What hope and change are to Obama, stand and fight are to McCain.
The tepid reaction to McCain (save the dutiful screaming at the end) may have had a lot to do enthusiasm for Palin. Republicans are now going through post-Palin depression. Her speech on Wednesday combined clever attacks on Obama with warm-and-fuzzy biography and the sort of red-meat conservative rallying cries that convention-goers devour. Granted, expectations were low. But she exceeded them with such style and confidence that it made McCain look stiff by comparison. It’s no coincidence that two of McCain’s biggest applause lines were his mentions of Palin.
Of course, novelty and news value play a part, too. McCain’s surprise pick delighted conservatives otherwise ticked off by McCain’s unorthodoxy on immigration and campaign finance. Others glommed onto her family story. (Republicans here are psyched about Bristol’s baby.) And she injected the ticket with much-needed energy, plus a dose of sympathy.
No doubt McCain’s camp is breathing a sigh of relief at Palin’s popularity. While concerns about her maverick credentials remain, few still describe her as a “gamble” anymore. What no one anticipated is that she might overshadow McCain himself.
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