The Convention has ended, and it was a success by any measure. And while John McCain’s speech may not have had the historic quality that Sarah Palin’s address did last night, I think he can rest assured that his mission was accomplished.

John McCain is not an orator. He doesn’t possess the natural skills that made men like Reagan and Clinton great communicators. Fortunately, he didn’t reach for the stars with his rhetoric.  Instead he did what he does best – he spoke directly to the American people.  His speech was characteristically McCain, and it had a few qualities in particular that struck me.

First, it was oddly specific. McCain took great pains to lay out his tax plan, his energy plan, his education plan, and his view of the American economy. National security was touched on, but it wasn’t the focus. This was a kitchen table speech, all meat and potatoes.

Second, it was strikingly personal. McCain laid bare his soul for America to see. I have read his book and was familiar with some of what he was saying, but I never expected to hear the words “And they broke me” spoken to a national audience. It was a shocking disclosure, and one that has been widely known for some time, but was stunning in the moment for its candor. And yet he tied his lowest point into a greater narrative about the transformative effect that his experiences had on his character.

Third, McCain did something that Obama has failed to do in this campaign – he called a nation to service. The theme “Country First” has suddenly become clear. McCain showed the world that he is a man who lives that belief, and he called on us all to join him in putting our country first. The theme of the speech, and indeed of McCain’s candidacy, was revealed in what I believe was as close to a “Thousand Points of Light” moment as we got:

I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else’s. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency; for its faith in the wisdom, justice and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn’t my own man anymore. I was my country’s.

That’s powerful. That is a glimpse into the soul of a man who truly has given his life to a cause greater than himself.

Finally, the end of the speech. It was impossible to hear live because of the roar of the crowd, and I think McCain did the right thing by going ahead and plowing through the cheers. Inaudible though they were, his words should become a rallying cry for all Americans.

Fight with me. Fight with me. Fight for what’s right for our country.

Fight for the ideals and character of a free people.

Fight for our children’s future.

Fight for justice and opportunity for all.

Stand up to defend our country from its enemies.

Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America.

Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We’re Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.

Tonight John McCain articulated clearly his vision for this country and gave a powerful testimony to America’s inherent greatness. As I said, he is not an orator, and his words didn’t flow perfectly, but his emotion was genuine and his intentions clear. McCain intends to lead, and he knows exactly where he wants to lead us.

This is not a speech that will be inscribed on monuments or taught in classrooms. But its content was genuine, moving, and utterly American. We couldn’t have asked for more.

And now the campaign begins in earnest, and I can say honestly that for the first time during the cycle, the Republican Party is confident from top to bottom.

And to quote that great philosopher Chuck Berry: “Go, Johnny, Go!”

Morning thoughts…

Everyone is raving about Sarah Palin’s speech from last night. The only criticism I’ve heard: her hair isn’t distinctly modern. Oh, and Harry Reid called her shrill. Hmm…

Oh, as if we needed further confirmation on Palin’s awesomeness: her teleprompter was malfunctioning throughout her speech. That would have been enough to earn several minutes worth of “Uhs” and “Ums” from Obama, but Palin handled it like a pro.

With Palin having done her part for the week, the spotlight now turns to John McCain. McCain isn’t great when reading from a teleprompter, which is why I hope he will, as rumored, walk away from the podium at certain points during the speech. McCain doesn’t need to match Obama or Palin in rhetoric, but what he does need to do is deliver a Thousand Points of Light-style address. For McCain, a little eloquence will go a long way.

Does anyone find it odd that while McCain took great pains to keep the Palin pick under wraps so as not to step on Obama’s toes, and even went so far as to air an ad congratulating Obama on his big night, the Illinois Senator has chosen to spend the night of McCain’s acceptance speech doing a highly-publicized interview with Bill O’Reilly?

Quote of the Morning:

“Possibly the most depressed liberal in the country today (other than Obama) is Hillary Clinton. She has been dogged, patient. She has spent years preparing to win the presidency. She’s weathered public humiliation. She was planning to be the frontrunner for 2012. But last night she saw the future and she’s not in it.”

- Peter Kirsanow, National Review

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the Palin pick is this: everyone has thought from the beginning that this election was about Barack Obama. If Americans were comfortable with Obama, they’d elect him. If not, well, there was John McCain. McCain was the fall-back. But with Palin on the ticket, the election isn’t about Obama anymore. It’s about bringing real reform to Washington and which ticket is more qualified to do that. It’s easy to see why Republicans are so excited this morning.

But first…

It really struck me how the speakers throughout the night established a narrative that built to Palin’s address. First we heard from small businessmen, city council members, state senators, and concerned citizens. Then we were privileged to hear from two successful female business leaders – Meg Whitman of eBay fame, and Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard. The storyline was established: Republicans are the party of average Americans and strong women.

Then the superstars hit. Michael Steele, the former Lieutenant Governor from Maryland and the most prominent African-American in our party gave a speech in which he coined a new catchphrase for proponents of energy independence – “Drill, Baby, Drill.” Mitt Romney brought the crowd to its feet with talk about… business? I actually clapped for Mike Huckabee, who was magnificent. And Rudy… well, he was the Rudy of old tonight.

But none was the star of the evening.

Whether John McCain wins or loses this election, the speech that Sarah Palin gave tonight will be long remembered. In a way that no woman – and yes, I am including Hillary Clinton – no woman has ever done, Sarah Palin has fundamentally changed American politics with her address tonight. As she took the stage, the room was euphoric, but the joy was tempered with caution. After all, our only exposure to Palin had been her well-delivered but not outstanding speech last Friday. Could she stand on stage with the big boys?

The question has been answered.

The answer is a resounding yes.

We all held our breath for a minute, but when she leaned into the mic, cracked the first joke, and smiled that beauty queen smile, we all fell in love with her. She grabbed the bull by the horns and never let go. The crowd loved her. The pundits are raving. The critics are silent.

Tomorrow it’ll start again in earnest, because the liberals of this country now have no reason to doubt that Sarah Palin is an immediate threat to their left-wing vision of the future. The attacks will get slimier. The reporting will get shoddier. They will do all they can to destroy Sarah Palin and everything she stands for.

And the Governor will smile and America will applaud.

I overheard someone at the Convention say something as he pinned a McCain-Palin button to his shirt. He told his friend, “I’m voting for Palin. I guess I’ll take McCain, but I’m voting for Palin.”

I think it’s safe to say that he’s not alone.

I then attended a lunch sponsored by Ed Morrissey – he of Hot Air fame. The lunch was held at a restaurant owned by a Kurdish refugee who had fled Saddam’s Iraq in 1991. Last year he returned to his home country to visit relatives now living in peace, free from Hussein’s tyranny. In addition to meeting Ed, I also had a chance to chat with David All of Tech Republican and Mary Katherine Ham, formerly of Townhall.com and currently writing for the Washington Examiner. The lunch was informal, with little in the way of policy and a lot in the way of anecdotes.

I’ll upload photos later, but I’m getting ready to run off to a press conference being held by House Republicans. I’ll report back later.

I can’t emphasize enough how magnificently I thought Fred Thompson and Joe Lieberman performed last night. I have great difficulty believing that an undecided voter could hear their testimonies to John McCain’s character and resolve and not think to themselves, “How did I ever consider voting for Barack Obama?” Fred, for those of you who may not know, replaced Governor Schwarzenegger, who is occupied with a vicious budget battle in California. Honestly, Fred did better than Schwarzenegger possibly could have in defining John McCain.

It’s a shame that all of this was overshadowed by more media smears of Governor Palin. According to some reports, certain media outlets didn’t even cover the Thompson and Lieberman speeches, and instead talked smack about Sarah Palin. Liberals are now quietly spreading rumors that McCain is going to kick Palin off the ticket – which absolutely NO ONE is considering. I’ll be in attendance tonight when Palin addresses the Convention, and I sincerely hope that she knocks it out of the park.

But if she does her job tonight, Sarah Palin may well win this election for John McCain.

Links for the morning are in the Twitter feed. I’ll update again later. Until then, adios!

Update: Reports are now swirling that liberal blogs have gotten hold of Sarah Palin’s Social Security number. Why? For no good reason. This constitutes a gross invasion of privacy.

After the challenges that delayed the start of the Convention yesterday, I was interested in seeing what the mood would be today. I wondered what the reaction of the crowd would be to the ridiculous stream of smears that the Left and the media have been slinging toward Sarah Palin. I was curious which Fred Thompson we’d see – the energized Federalist who teased us during the summer or the drab one that showed up during the fall. And I wondered whether or not Joe Lieberman could actually hold a Republican crowd.

To answer the first question, the crowd was ready.

To answer the second, everyone in the building was 100% behind Sarah Palin. Granted, the Republican National Convention isn’t exactly the most unbiased crowd, but I have yet to see or hear anyone speak out against Governor Palin and her family outside of the media.

Third, Fred brought his A-Game. If you didn’t see him, here’s the full speech.

He had the entire crowd in the palm of his hand as he told the tale of John McCain’s life and character. Fred made a magnificent case for a McCain presidency, and took the opportunity to defend Sarah Palin, attack Barack Obama, and take shots at the country’s media – all worthy causes, I must say.

And to the fourth, I never thought that Joe Lieberman could enthrall a Republican crowd quite like he did. Joe isn’t the speaker that Fred is, but he came out and made an impassioned plea to his fellow Democrats and independents to cross the aisle for the good of the country. I would hope that a lot of undecided voters were watching tonight, because between Fred and Joe, I can’t imagine a better case being made to vote McCain.

Highlights of the day for me: pre-dinner drinks with Amanda Carpenter of Townhall.com (pictured above); the hugely positive reception Karl Rove received when he appeared in the Fox News booth; the unexpected arrival of President George H.W. Bush and his wife Barbara, which received a standing ovation; video presentations tying great Republican presidents, including Roosevelt, Reagan, and Bush I, to John McCain through the overarching theme of “Country First”; a testimony by a friend of John McCain who adopted a girl that Cindy McCain found in the custody of Mother Teresa; and most movingly, a tribute to Medal of Honor winner Michael Monsoor, who threw himself on a grenade in Iraq to save the life of two fellow soldiers, that had the entire arena in tears.

Tomorrow’s schedule is still fluid, but everyone is anticipating Governor Palin’s address. Given the nature of the media coverage on Palin since the announcement last Friday that she is McCain’s running mate, everyone is hoping to see her walk through the curtain with confidence and tell the American people who she is.

(On a personal note, and I covered this yesterday and then again this morning, I continue to be absolutely disgusted with the sheer malice of the mainstream media and the attacks that they are employing to not only discredit but destroy Sarah Palin and her family. These people are insulted that neither Governor Palin nor her daughter would abort a child, and have decided that it is their civic responsibility as Obama supporters to destroy Sarah Palin and all that she represents – that is, they have decided to try to destroy the image of a woman who can have both career and family. Liberals have finally and definitively forfeited the moral high ground with their shameless assaults on Palin and her family, and I hope that it comes back and bites them hard this November.)

I’ll be in attendance tomorrow to hear Palin’s speech, and I’ll report back with scattered thoughts tomorrow morning.

But only conservatives play the Politics of Fear™.

Why does Team Obama continue to refer to Sarah Palin as a “small town mayor” and ignore her term as governor? It’s the equivalent of calling Obama an Illinois state senator.

Has anyone – ANYONE – outside of the media blowhards unleashed on Sarah Palin over her daughter’s pregnancy?

What does it say about some people that they believe that someone’s child getting pregnant disqualifies the grandparent-to-be from a high office?

Furthermore, what does it say about some people that they take glee in brutally slandering a seventeen year-old facing a serious situation with tact and grace?

Does Barack Obama really think running for president qualifies him to be president more than running a state qualifies Sarah Palin to be vice president?

If people’s intimately personal issues are now fair game for the media, why haven’t we seen more stories about Obama’s radical ties, such as those documented at BarackBook.com?

I’m no Pat Buchanan fan, but is calling him a Nazi sympathizer in a press release for the purpose to sullying Sarah Palin, who once as mayor welcomed Buchanan when he made a stop in her home town, really wise strategy for the Obama campaign?

Point of note: the response to Hurricane Gustav has been light-years ahead of what was done during Katrina. How much of that is coincidence and how much of that is Bobby Jindal?

And could any right-winger get away with anything coming close to the blatant sexism that the entire leftist media has shown toward Sarah Palin?

Today’s confirmed speakers include Senator Joe Lieberman and former Senator Fred Thompson. A more complete schedule will be released later today.

More updates as the day goes on. Adios!

Well, there wasn’t much of a day one to tell you the truth. With the arrival of Hurricane Gustav and the Bristol Palin hullabaloo, the limited activities of the convention got drowned out. I did get to take a trip around the Xcel Energy Center, and thought that the crew has done a bang-up job with the set-up. It’s a fundamentally different look that we’ve come to expect from national conventions – very simple and clean, and a far cry from the cluttered, overly-theatrical style that the Democrats employed in Denver. I did give in and buy my first bits of merch – a McCain-Palin hat, a McCain-Palin shirt, and a McCain-Palin button.