The View From Here . . .

By Bob Morgan, Jr.

As this is written, the Republican National Convention is over and the shape of the presidential race has been substantially changed, at least for a time. But the end game is just beginning.

The candidacy of Senator John McCain has clearly enjoyed a substantial bounce following the GOP convention. As of this writing, he has about a 3 point lead in the Real Clear Politics average of national polls over Senator Barack Obama and has pulled nearly even with Senator Obama in the Intrade futures markets, in effect a betting exchange.

The convention has to be viewed as quite successful despite the curtailment of the first day because of Hurricane Gustav. The chief speakers like Fred Thompson, Joe Lieberman and Rudy Giuliani skillfully made the contrast between Mr. McCain's life and career and that of Mr. Obama, continually portrayed as not ready to lead.

So far, Mr. McCain has benefitted significantly from his choice of Sarah Palin as vice presidential nominee. Ironically, the somewhat over the top focus on Ms. Palin's personal and family life led to huge television ratings for her convention speech and she came through with a well delivered, feisty and at times funny speech.

As for Mr. McCain's own acceptance speech, which drew a larger television audience than Mr. Obama's, it had little in the way of soaring rhetoric and was not all that specific about policy proposals. But, especially for viewers not all that familiar with Mr. McCain's background and the details of his experiences as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, it skillfully made the case of a man of exceptional courage and character.

Despite their successes, however, Mr. McCain's team should not be measuring the drapes in the White House just yet. For one thing, as fairly conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) points out, Sarah Palin is only the vice presidential pick. Moreover, in Mr. Reynold's view, she is a relative newcomer to national politics very likely to make a major mistake between now and November.

For another, while Republicans made some enduring impressions at the convention (Mr. McCain is a man of character with a clear experience advantage over Mr. Obama, Mr. McCain would make a strong commander in chief ), Mr. McCain still needs to define his vision as it relates to domestic policy.

In his acceptance speech in Denver and other policy pronouncements, Mr. Obama has outlined a view of America as in pretty desperate shape and in need of a massive infusion of new governmental initiatives, plus higher taxes on business and the "wealthy." Many Americans tend to reject this rather standard liberal view of the world. On the other hand, the Bush Administration is deeply unpopular and huge majorities of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track.

Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin are in effect promising a third way, grounded on "reform" and ending corruption, waste and the influence of special interests. But Americans are likely looking for something more than a cleaned up reprise of the Bush Administration. The McCain ticket needs to put forward new ideas on such topics as health care, Social Security, education and Medicare that do not seem like more of the same, but also are far removed from Mr. Obama's standard "tax and spend" proposals. If it can do that successfully, the Republicans have an excellent chance of winning this race after all.