Republicans 2, Democrats 0

I thought the McCain and Giuliani speeches were very effective. They both laid out specific and substantive cases for the war on terror, including and especially the war in Iraq. McCain pointed out the instability of the pre-war status quo with Iraq and Giuliani the fact that any strategy for victory in the war on terror required regime change in Bagdhad. Both of these points are arguable, but at least the Republicans put them out there. In contrast, the Democrats at their convention (with the exception of Joe Biden) said very little about these issues. Even the criticism of Bush was rather oblique ("he mislead us") and we got little idea as to how Kerry would differ from Bush on these issues. This campaign may well be test of whether you can beat something with nothing.