McCain sounds his age, not like an elder statesman

John McCain cut rather a sad sight last night as he addressed the Republican National Convention on his 76th birthday. Four years ago, he would have envisaged spending the convention stepping up his campaign for a second presidential term. Now, he was reduced to a speech that attracted only polite interest from delegates, who were far more enthused by the offerings from Rand Paul and Paul Ryan. Few people are consigned to history more rapidly than nominees who lost a presidential election: none since Nixon, with his almost unique powers of resilience, have later campaigned seriously to reclaim the nomination.

At times it felt as though the only applause McCain was receiving was from his home state of Arizona, and even that sprang less from enthusiasm, and more from dutifulness. The strong foreign policy emphasis of his speech seemed almost incongruous: the concerns of his party, and the electorate-at-large, are overwhelmingly of the economic variety in this election.