I’m glad that Hurricane Gustav did not wreak as much havoc on the Gulf Coast as so many of us feared it would, and I thought it was quite classy for the Republican Party to alter their convention plans this past Monday like they did. By Tuesday, however, things were back to normal for them, and trying to sit through their convention has been one of the most painful things I’ve done in a long, long time. Fred Thompson’s speech reminded me of exactly why I love him so much as an actor — his wonderful bass voice, his ability to switch between learned determination and folksy metaphors, his knowledge of just when and how to raise his voice at just the right moments — and why I hate him as a politician. I also have to question the wisdom of putting on Fred Thompson — by all acounts to throw the conventioners the "red meat" they had been so longing for — right before Joe Lieberman, who has all the excitement of hardened Silly Putty. Why does Ralph Nader get all the blame for 2000 when the Democrats put up this guy and Al Gore back when Gore still had that redwood tree lodged firmly up his sphincter?

Last night, though, I think may have been the Republicans’ undoing. I twitted last night that it would be the night that cost the Republicans the presidency, but I don’t think I should have gone quite that far. For one thing, I seem to be the only person on the face of the planet who was not impressed in the slightest with Sarah Palin’s speech. Eugene Robinson pointed out how the speech seemed to be a mish-mash of two different speeches, but he should have gone further and said that neither speech was good at all. On the one hand, you had the carefully-crafted applause lines, likely written by John McCain’s camp, that Palin delivered in a pedestrian manner at best. On the other hand, you had the part of the speech that was likely written by Palin’s camp, and it was so full of incomplete and jagged sentences, and irrelevant thoughts, that Palin wound up sounding like a small-town politician. She didn’t even sound gubernatorial, much less vice-presidential or presidential. I know she’s only had a week or so to prepare for national-level politics, but unless McCain steps up her training here in a hurry, Joe Biden is going to systematically dismantle her at the vice-presidential debate, and I don’t think anyone in McCain’s camp is expecting him to best Barack Obama either tonight in his acceptance speech or at the debates. (Oh, and the fact that Palin wants to ban books makes me even angrier at the Republicans than I already was.)

In addition to Palin underwhelming me, I think Rudy Giuliani may have sowed the seeds of demise for the whole party this November, and not just by him and Palin pooh-poohing Obama’s work as a community organizer. (The difference isn’t that Palin had responsibilities as a mayor; it’s that Obama actually worked with disadvantaged people. Don’t even get me started on the covert racism at work here.) I know that the recent hikes in gas prices have caused more people to be in favour of expanding American oil drilling, but this is still a nation with some environmental values; most of the people who are changing sides on this issue right now are doing so with heavy hearts, believing that expanding drilling is a "necessary evil" in the face of the current world oil situation. When Giuliani not only pointed out, but encouraged, a chant of "Drill Baby Drill!" during his speech last night, he cast the Republicans not only as enemies of the environment, but as people who take sheer delight in raping the earth. Just like Pat Buchanan’s virulent homophobia in his convention speech sixteen years ago caused even people who weren’t all that comfortable with homosexuals to go, "Wow, those Republicans really have too much hate in their hearts," I think that "Drill Baby Drill!" moment is going to come back to haunt the Republicans, from McCain and Palin all the way down the ticket, come November.

I’m not in the business of telling the Democrats how to run their elections — I’m still not voting for Obama no matter how anyone tries to convince me otherwise — but between the "Drill Baby Drill!" chants, the party platform that says even rape survivors shouldn’t be allowed access to legal abortion, and all those photos of Bush and McCain hugging each other, there’s enough material there for several rounds of hard-hitting commercials that should net Obama the lion’s share of the political centre. Given how bad the Republicans are screwing up, if the Democrats somehow can’t get Obama elected this year, it will be through no one’s fault but their own. Just like it was in 2000.