Written by: Beck

The last big speaker prior to Bush is taking the podium. He looks put upon that the crowd won't stop applauding.

Some good news: "Tonight, I'm going to be brief."

Evidently, after 9/11, 1000 people from Oregon went to New York to help the NY tourism industry rebound. Interesting way to appeal to a West Coast state. And Iowa sent 1,500 quilts. Yep. Quilts. Iowa must be a pretty exciting place to live. Pennsylvania did some nice things too. I wonder if his whole speech is going to be a matter of thanking people for their support after the tragedy of September.

"On that terrible day, everyone became New Yorkers, so what I've wanted to do since that day was to have a chance to thank you all in front of the world. Thank you."

He's moving on now.

"This is the most important election of our lifetime." Have you heard that before? He was at Yale at the same time as Kerry & Bush. And not it looks like he's going to tear into Kerry. "I want to help voters compare Bush's record of achievement with Senator Kerry's so that they can see the difference--that President Bush has a record of achievement."

Update: The catch line now is, "Bush said he'd do it... and he did." Health care, education, prescription drug benefits, etc. "He means what he says, he says what he means, and you can trust him."

"What can we say about Senator Kerry? For the war, then against the war. For it, but wouldn't fund it. Would fund it, but wasn't for it. For the Patriot Act, then he was against it."

"This is a candidate who has to Google his own name to find out where he stands." It's official--to google has become a mainstream verb.

"We're going to win one for the Gipper." Kind of random there.

"Our opponents, they're going to lose one with the flipper." And now the audience is chanting "flipper." What a weird world I live in.

Pataki is delivering a fine speech, but inasmuch as we're four days into the convention, he's not really saying anything that hasn't been said before by others.

Update: "We learned that in the hands of a monster, a box cutter is a weapon of mass destruction. Well Saddam Hussein was a monster, and we are better off now that he is gone."

Update: "Senator Kerry says we should go to war when we have to go to war, not when we want to go to war. Well Senator Kerry, those policemen and fire fighters who ran into the burning buildings on September 11th didn't want to run into those buildings, they did it because they were heroes in a war they didn't even know they were fighting." This followed by something else quote worthy that I wasn't fast enough in typing to catch. But you get the idea.

Update: Pataki ends on a nearly messianic note, likening Bush to the statue of liberty, someone guided to his position to lead us out of the darkness. It sounds odd with me simply describing it, but it sounded quite good as he said it. You'll just have to take my word for it I suppose.