I watched the game.

Let McCain be McCain until Palin takes over.

Will Gamecock show his face here after our Dores embarassed his team?

I had just the opposite impression of the speech, because I deliberately turned off the computer at about 9:30 and watched the speech itself, the old fashioned way, with no attempt made to blog it, live or otherwise.

I really enjoyed it. I even enjoyed the way he handled the protestors. I decided this time to sit back and let the speech talk to me instead of my trying to engage in some kind of a running dialogue with it.

I was really pleased by almost everything he had to say, I thought it was substantive and moving. The end was absolutely electrifying and I was choked up there and at several times during his biography.

I don’t know what it says about me, but McCain brought me around tonight. I didn’t read the liveblog comments but I take it it got a lukewarm reception? I had just the opposite take:

After hearing the speech I really want to work to help John McCain succeed, and help America succeed. I think he articulated a vision of what America needs to do together beautifully.

The internet isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I was glad I didn’t liveblog it, I was much more pensive and attentive just watching him speak this time. I found after the speech that I was less cynical about politics and America, and I’m more convinced now that there’s much more work to be done in “the real world” than there is online. Along with Palin, McCain has inspired me, but the Internet isn’t where I want to do most of the work: I accepted his call tonight, his speech made me a believer in the man, he made me want to make America more of the place he described so well. I was truly inspired by his words about believing in a calling larger than ourselves; it resonated with me.

A bit of a different reaction than people had here, I gather. I’m beginning to think — no swipe or offense to anyone present — that the internet isn’t where it’s at when it comes to fulfilling a higher purpose. It’s going to be the actions in the real world that matter.

But halfway through I had the feeling I was listening to a Bill Clinton State of the Union address. I definitely could have lived without all the “I feel your pain and here is what the government is going to spend money on to make you feel better” moments.

My main thought was, if he was going to go ahead and say those McCain-ish things to appeal to the Democrats, independents, and I guess the “disaffected”- he should have gone ahead and talked a little bit more about the things that will appeal to them. A little more emphasis and a little more policy detail on some of “their” issues. If you are going to sock-it to the Republicans, you might as well close the deal by talking about what they want to hear about.

Although I must say, they should have liked all the talk about training for the jobs of tomorrow that will last “forever” after losing a job that isn’t coming back, not never.

He obviously struggled here and there with the TelePrompTer, but we pretty much expected that. He did pretty decently in general. I heard one of the talking heads say that he seems more comfortable talking about others than about himself. That may be true.