The Long Speech

I haven't yet written about Senator John McCain's Nomination Acceptance Speech at the Republican National Convention last week....

His speech was long. Too long really. He had a nice opening when he spoke to Senator Obama. Then he dropped into what sounded like a lengthy stump speech. Finally, when he began telling his story in Vietnam (in a different way then many others have relayed Lieutenant Commander McCain’s experiences) I was moved. When Senator McCain talked about being broken by his North Vietnamese torturers/captors I actually started to tear up a bit (not that crying is a measure of anything concrete – just look to campaign stop ‘Obasms’ to understand how meaningless this can be). Unfortunately this was 43 minutes into his address. I wonder what percentage of the audience that mattered (those who aren’t solidly committed to turning out for either nominee) were still awake and tuned in to hear the rousing final nine minutes of that speech?