quick thoughts on tonight's RNC

Fred Thompson's speech was good. My favorite part was when he did some straight-talking about Obama's tax proposals and how Obama swears "they won't raise your taxes. . .unless you buy things from a business or get paid by a business." That is a theme that needs to be hammered home from now 'til November. I don't think the speech was as much "red meat" as we were promised, but it was good. And as was written at National Review, I don't think anybody has ever spoken about McCain's POW time as well as Thompson did tonight.

Joe Lieberman's speech was pretty good, although it didn't get the rousing cheers of Thompson's. I did like his line about "unity of the country" instead of "unity of the party". And Lieberman hit on a thought that I've been having a lot lately: our party system is as much a hindrance on representative government as, say, the teacher's union is a hindrance on a primary education. The most important thing is to be correct on the issue, not correct on the party's stance. And that is something that McCain has tried to be, time and again.

SO here's the question: was tonight effective? Well, I wasn't the target, so I don't know for sure. But at least there was a pretty direct plea to an audience that apparently the DNC never reached out to.

And at least a decent stage is set for the next two nights, when the lights will be really shining.