Political Speeches Worth Watching

From the Al Smith dinner, October 16, 2008:

McCain:

Obama:

Obama’s closing:

As electoral-vote.com points out:

When McCain is left to his own devices, he does pretty well. He can be funny and authentic. If he loses, he may later come to realize that his biggest mistake was hiring Lee Atwater's ghost dressed up as Steve Schmidt. If he had run a positive campaign, chosen Joe Lieberman as his Veep, and just focused on his experience and maverickness (mavericity?) he might have come across as the real thing and attracted all the independents now rapidly gravitating to Obama. Surely it wasn't his idea to hang his campaign on attacks on Obama's tenuous connection with a "washed up old terrorist," as he put it Wednesday. One of the lessons of this campaign may end up being: Be yourself.