Contemporaneous reactions to Vice President Cheney's speech, followed by a breif impromptu analysis.
Very solid, if not too awe-inspring introduction for VP Cheney. Competent and solid.
Now for the alleged red-meat section of the convention. Let’s see if it delivers.
He’s glad Zell Miller’s on our side? Just be glad he ain’t Al Qaeda. Then you’d see some trouble.
“Thank you” (Now be silent).
Has a good sense on timing his applause lines.
His jokes are actually not that bad – amazing out of a canned speech. Good hair and sex appeal, indeed.
Humble beginnings ties in nicely to Arnold’s speech, very nicely. Takes a lot of the sting out of the Edwards populist angle. Nicely done with two big headliners. Especially with the public school angle (compare and contrast to the two presidential candidates).
Kind of a weaker point for Cheney on domestic issues, but sandwiched between Miller tonight and Bush tomorrow (theoretically), it makes good sense. I'm curious to see if he slams J&J on defense.
Very weak applause on healthcare. But a solid shot on trial lawyers and tort reform. (And Edwards)
Now the much anticipated red meat fest (for all those red state people). Any clue on the commotion on the floor? Anyone see what it was? He'll have to re-engage the audience again. A tough act for a relatively cool character.
A bit more of a thinking speech, rather than a soundbite speech. Kind of wish he'd been able to put this right on the heels of Sen. Miller's speech. Could have really, really hit home. But we're not through it yet.
Good resonance with Rudy on the previous unanswered attacks. Good paralellism.
Muffed on a couple of applause lines. He's expecting a bit more energized audience.
Got it right on the Saddam line: "Tonight he sits in jail." Smooth elision to Libya as being the proxy WMD threat that Iraq proved not to be.
Even though he got some props on shutting down the WMD blackmarket, I'm not nearly as comfortable.
Slick!! Slick, slick, slick!! Combining the Afghan and Iraq casualties, he gets more than a grand - steals a march and takes some of the momentum out of the 'more than 1,000' troops thing we can expect to hear before 11/2.
Good tie in to Cold War bipartisanship - very good milage from Sen. Miller's earlier remarks.
Good timing on the shift from Kerry's Vietnam expereince (and Swift Vet ads which Kerry is having problems responding to) and his Senate record. Very, very resonant with Miller. Smooth. Very smooth repositioning.
Al Qeada falls to the America's softer side. Not bad.
"My fellow Americans, America has already been attacked." Good.
Interesting, still defending pre-emption. Setting groundwork to make the Iran Mullahs weak in the knees?
Question - do Kerry or Edwards wear flag pins in their lapels? Cheney is right now. Don't know if he has recently or not.
Flip flop flip flop flip flop flip flop. Wow - I started typing it before the chanting started.
Another muffed applause line - a Senator can be wrong for 20 years without consequence to the nation.
I did like the Kerry seeing two Americas, and it's mutual. The line got a bit tore up with applause timing.
Another interesting play for the Scoop Jackson Democrats - it seems that someone is trying to pirate the Arsenal of Democracy.
Needed a much crisper close and ending. Not much of a finish.
Immediate thoughts below...
Analysis -
Interesting as he's tying together the threads of three of the other big headliners - Guilani, Schwarzenegger, and Miller, as well as pirouetting deftly between Vietnam, the Cold War, and the War on Terror. More on that later.
The senior Senator from the great state of Georgia, Zell Miller is a force to behold. Given the low expectations for Cheney he lived up to them. He hasn't the speaking prowess of the other three earlier headliners.
I find it interesting that rather than trying to avoid upstaging their headliner with opening acts (as was true during the DNC planning process), they were able to live with stacking the deck early. Granted, there has been a bit of momentum shift - but interesting.
Also interesting that the focus of the RNC has been the failings of Kerry - a departure from typical incumbent campaigning.
Now for the punditocracy (on TV). Thought Cheney's speech was a stilleto to Miller's raw meat speech. C. Matthews, and the other MSNBC commentators bow down in fearsome respect.
I guess I was looking for a more fiery speech after Miller's zinger (kind of an inverse Nixon going to China kind of thing, I guess). Cheney's speech would have been a better essay than Millers - so I guess it's a question of whether or not the convention is more info- or more -mmercial.
Brokaw is missing the point on Miller's speech. The big guns on the speech were his Cold War record - not Iraq. Damn, everyone else is missilng that too. It's kind of a pisser, because that's actually pretty frigging important.
Based on news coverage, Cheney's speech may have been just the thing to ramp down after Miller.