McCain’s Successful Convention: How so and Why
By Clark S. Judge
 
By last night (Sunday) it had become clear:  Despite almost exactly opposite reporting in the mainstream media, the Democrats two weeks ago had their second failed convention in a row.  It was the Republican convention that proved a huge success.  How so and why?
 
First the “how so.” Politicians live and die by polls. A convention succeeds if it produces a bounce, the bigger the better.  By Tuesday last week in the aftermath of his convention, Barack Obama’s lead over John McCain in the Real Clear Politics average of polls had opened up to the largest margin since late June, 6.4 percentage points. By last night, in the wake of the latest Rasmussen tracking poll showing a tie and the Gallup tracking poll showing McCain up by three points, the RCP average spread was 0.8 percent, the smallest margin since early June.
 
The bad news may soon become worse.  Thursday night word spread around St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center that not only was a CBS poll showing the race tied (some dismissed the survey as a fluke), but a California poll had the race within nine points in the largest and most Democratic state in the nation.  Some began to wonder if, with a little more momentum, the Golden State might go into play.
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Officials at MSNBC emphasize that they never set out to create a liberal version of Fox News.

"It happened naturally," Phil Griffin, a senior vice president of NBC News who is the executive in charge of MSNBC, said Friday, referring specifically to the channel's passion and point of view from 7 to 10 p.m.

WASHINGTON — The Republican National Convention has given John McCain and his party a significant boost, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken over the weekend shows, as running mate Sarah Palin helps close an "enthusiasm gap" that has dogged the GOP all year.

McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama by 50%-46% among registered voters, the Republican's biggest advantage since January and a turnaround from the USA TODAY poll taken just before the convention opened in St. Paul. Then, he lagged by 7 percentage points....

In the new poll, taken Friday through Sunday, McCain leads Obama by 54%-44% among those seen as most likely to vote.

SEN BIDEN:  I voted against telling everyone else in the country that they have to accept my religiously based view that [life begins at] a moment of conception. There is a debate in our church, as Cardinal Egan would acknowledge, that's existed. Back in "Summa Theologia," when Thomas Aquinas wrote "Summa Theologia," he said there was no--it didn't occur until quickening, 40 days after conception.  (emphasis added).

It's enough that Biden confessed in the same interview that he still wasn't up to speed with Governor Palin's views, a full 9 days after she was named to the ticket.  But, like Nancy Pelosi, it's apparent that Biden also is misrepresenting the existence and nature of any supposed "debate" in the Church over abortion.  Although some may have questioned when, precisely, life begins, that inquiry was never part of any larger "debate" over the morality of abortion itself.

For one thing, an Aquinas expert consulted in the wake of the Pelosi gaffe said that although Aquinas speculated about when life begins, "no way in life would Aquinas have accepted abortion."  And the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has spelled it out in recent days: "[M]istaken biological theories never changed the Church’s common conviction that abortion is gravely wrong at every stage. "

Second, wasn't Biden even listening to the statement of Cardinal Egan that Brokaw read in one of the questions to him?  Maybe this will clear it up for him:

We are blessed in the 21st century with crystal-clear photographs and action films of the living realities within their pregnant mothers. No one with the slightest measure of integrity or honor could fail to know what these marvelous beings manifestly, clearly, and obviously are, as they smile and wave into the world outside the womb.  . . . They are not parts of their mothers, and what they are depends not at all upon the opinions of theologians of any faith. Anyone who dares to defend that they may be legitimately killed because another human being “chooses” to do so or for any other equally ridiculous reason should not be providing leadership in a civilized democracy worthy of the name.

Now, what "debate" are you talking about, Senator Biden?