A Prediction Regarding McCain's Speech

Tonight John McCain will give the most important speech of his career. The staging in St. Paul has been modified to give it more of a town hall meeting look, a venue in which McCain is very comfortable. I'm sure he'll still use a teleprompter, and with McCain that could be a negative. He has never learned to be comfortable with those. It throws his timing off and his speeches tend to have too many awkward moments.

Regardless of how he does I can pretty much predict the reaction from the mainstream media, especially after his spokesman blasted them yesterday for their scurrilous coverage of Sarah Palin. The operative words will be "disappointing", "let down" "overshadowed by his VP". Even if McCain knocks it out in St. Paul there will be an attempt to make it appear that his speech killed the momentum generated by Sarah Palin. You can take that to the bank.

Of course, if he doesn't do a good job that description will be warranted, but I think he'll rise to the occasion and at least do better than he has in some teleprompter addresses.

I'm sure the media is already writing their reviews and are just hoping the speech lives "down" to their hopes.

By the way, McCain's speech may go right up against the opening game of the NFL season. I'm not sure that's a bad thing, especially if he's not as sharp as we'd like. The viewers that watch the game instead of him hopefully watched last night, and that's the image they'll retain.