I never liked paying for a performer who had a cut-and paste show. I remember being dragged to a Neil Diamond concert in the late 1970's at the old Auditorium Theatre here in Chicago.
Neil had a formula 'Hot August Night' or some such nonsense - very loud, tinsel-ly, important and bone-crushingly boring show. I slowed down to sixty MPH and let my date out of my 1967 Rambler American, immediately after Neil's sweat-stained 'Thank You!' never to see the young lady again -'I thought we were going to the Italian Village After?' What we want and what we get are two very different things.
Shortly, there after I took a lovely red-head to Creedance Clearwater Revival fronted by the Straight-as- Calvert's in a Cheap Saloon John Fogerty! Magnificent.
'Born on the Bayou' indeed. I married that delightful young woman.
The DNC performers, Senator Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are giving scripted and pre-packaged Pop Concerts. Huge productions, great expectations - so-what finish.
Now, John McCain has been shouting out 'Stuck in Lodi' again! He is the real agent for change because he gives straight talk the venue it deserves up close and personal.
Granite State Giant and Venture Capitalist Patrick Hynes offered to me:
There is a lot of talk these days about “a different kind of campaign.” And yet very little being offered by our friends on the left seems substantively different from everything they have offered for decades.
Sen. McCain truly is offering a different kind of campaign—one that will take direct voter engagement to an unheard of level.
While some candidates rarely even take questions from the media, Sen. McCain will continue to take question from the people. From today’s New Hampshire Union Leader:
Speak on it, my Fortunate Son!
Yesterday, Sen. McCain held the first town hall meeting in what is to be an unprecedented presidential campaign centered around coast-to-coast town hall meetings.
Sen. McCain said yesterday that his experience listening to and speaking directly with voters in New Hampshire led him to adopt that format for his national campaign. He wants an unscripted dialog with the American people, including those who disagree with him.
"If you don't have that, I don't think it's legitimate to say you're listening to the people," he told us.
And so New Hampshire has done more than breathe life into McCain's once condition-critical campaign. It has transformed that campaign, and with it the way national presidential politics will be conducted this year (and perhaps thereafter?).
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=McCain+reborn:+Taking+NH+nationwide&articleId=c8b84c62-9e62-4975-9834-fe87d6aa858c
Union Leader: McCain Reborn: Taking NH Nationwide
Editorial
SEN. JOHN McCain's presidential campaign was reborn in New Hampshire . So it is fitting that his general election campaign be launched here, and in true New Hampshire fashion.
Yesterday, Sen. McCain held the first town hall meeting in what is to be an unprecedented presidential campaign centered around coast-to-coast town hall meetings.
Sen. McCain said yesterday that his experience listening to and speaking directly with voters in New Hampshire led him to adopt that format for his national campaign. He wants an unscripted dialog with the American people, including those who disagree with him.
"If you don't have that, I don't think it's legitimate to say you're listening to the people," he told us.
And so New Hampshire has done more than breathe life into McCain's once condition-critical campaign. It has transformed that campaign, and with it the way national presidential politics will be conducted this year (and perhaps thereafter?).
How is it that so small a state (only 1.3 million people) could have such a large impact on presidential politics? It is not simply our place in the presidential nomination calendar. After all, Iowa has had a smaller effect.
It is that the political process in New Hampshire is different -- and better -- than the process anywhere else.
Nowhere in America is government more closely controlled by the people. Nowhere in America are the people more widely and directly involved in politics generally and governing specifically.
Consider: At 2.9 million people, Mississippi has more than twice New Hampshire 's population. And yet only 29,700 more people voted in Tuesday's Mississippi presidential primary than voted in January's New Hampshire primary -- 559,242 to 529,542.
Sixty-one percent of New Hampshire 's registered voters -- and more than half the entire adult population -- turned out. Mississippi has more registered voters, 1.78 million, than New Hampshire has residents. But only 31 percent of them voted on Tuesday in an election of real importance.
Sen. McCain does well in New Hampshire because our political process is designed to cut through the fog produced by spin machines and image consultants and put voters in direct contact with the human beings running for the highest office in the land -- and when the voters size up Sen. McCain in person, they see a man they can trust and admire, even if they disagree with him on important issues.
Sen. McCain takes a risk in bringing New Hampshire-style campaigning nationwide. But that is the kind of politician he is. He won't hide behind a phalanx of staffers and consultants. If he can show the American people that strength of character directly, he can win them over, just as he won over New Hampshire .
John McCain wears flannel shirts. McCain and Fogerty know how to please an audience!
