The signs were manifest.
The literal ones: “Florida (heart) Straight Talk.” “Tampa Loves McCain.” “Florida Stands With McCain.” “Veterans For McCain.” “Supporting The Mac: Martinez, Crist, Stallone.” (Take that, Chuck Norris.) And, interestingly enough, “McCain Protecting Your Pocketbook” and “McCain = Prosperity.”
The music: upbeat ’60s Motown (The Four Tops) – and ironic: “I Can’t Help Myself.”
The introduction: as politically high profile as it gets in Florida — Gov. Charlie Crist.
The message: Brief and blunt.
The rhetoric: red meat applause lines.
Those who jammed a break-out room at Tampa Convention Center last week to hear feisty, 71-year-old John McCain were not disappointed. “Keeping America safe” was the unvarnished theme. To be sure, there was a sidebar on better veterans’ health care and a promise that McCain “will call Americans to serve” a cause “greater than their self interest.”
The Arizona senator also took less than 30 seconds to remind true believers that he’s on the right side of technology and innovation and definitely in favor of the government getting “out of the way of business.” That was it on the economy. Except for the unspoken fact that his campaign was battling insolvency.
Make no mistake, this whistle stop was all about trenchant warfare — a national security stream of conscious for the masses. Outgoing rhetorical rounds that referenced “The transcendent challenge of Islamic extremism.” And reminders that: “The central battleground is Iraq