REACTIONS TO MCCAIN: This isn't 1988, it's 1992

(Give to Barack Obama by clicking on the box to the left.)

Earlier this week I said that that listening to the convention speeches sounded like a rerun of the 1988 race. After the seeing the Republican Convention in total now, I was wrong. This race isn't like 1988, this is 1992. This isn't a a successful Republican Party seeking a legacy, it's a failed Republican Party bringing out a biography in an attempt to obscure the economic reality from the American people. This convention has been devoid of any ideas that you couldn't have found back in 1992. You even see a campaign picking a fight with the media. (Anyone remember "Annoy the media - reelect Bush"?)

The economy is weak, and the incumbent party either doesn't see it or has no idea on how to fix it. Sound a little like 1992? The same tired old ideas that we've been suffering under over the last eight years have brought about an economy that isn't working for millions of Americans. It's brought us a broken health care system that has more people without health care when the Republicans took office back in 2001. Sound like life in 1992?

Without any ideas, John McCain offered up all he has, biography. He tells a story of a war hero, someone to sympathize with, and then basically says that's all he needs to tell us. And somehow we're supposed to believe that this is maverick? It's not, it's 1992 all over again. Same script, new cast.

Listening to the speeches from the podium and the near mob-like response of the crowd, there is a little more passion than 1992 (except when Buchanan spoke), but when it comes in lines like "drill baby drill" - something George H.W. Bush, also an oilman, would certainly have understood.

Like 1992, the Democratic Party offers America a real agenda to fix the economy, address our health care issues, bring about energy independence & renewable energy, and a credibility to renew America as a leader on the world stage. Not sure that's true? Barack Obama has it all spelled out here (PDF).

At the end end of the day, McCain is trying to convince Americans that a man who is in lock step with George Bush is somehow maverick and going to change America. He is arguing that we should trust him because he's John McCain, not because he has the right ideas, not because he's going to take the country in a different direction. Because he's not - just look at his voting record. There was nothing in McCain's speech tonight that signaled the end of the George W. Bush era.