Pros -

"...reporting for duty." Smart in two ways. 1) Props him up as a soldier, and strong military leader. 2) Positions himself as a servant of the people, rather than the other way around.

"...don't wear my religion on my sleeve..." All at once a swipe at Bush's extreme religious views, and even his foreign policy. Bush has a frightening sense that because of his "close personal relationship" with god, that whatever he personally believes is also what god believes. It also positions Kerry as a religious man with moderate, fair, values himself.

"old glory" - The republicans have tried very hard to prop themselves up as the only party of patriotism. That if you don't support George and everything he believes in, then you must be un-American, and un-Patriotic. I think Kerry squashed that idea very well last night.

I was afraid Kerry would come across as dry, dull, and boring and was very pleased that he seemed to come out of his shell a bit, and actually act like he had a pulse. He managed to do it in a way that still seemed like himself though. If he'd poured too much into it, it would have come off as phony.

Cons - He promised 40,000 more troops. Where the heck are they coming from?

He promised to roll back the recent tax breaks for people making over $200,000/year...bravo to that I say, but what about other tax breaks for the super rich? What about the tax breaks on dividend payments? Since the dividend tax break CEO's across the country have started dramatically increasing their dividend payouts and making tons and tons of tax free money. The greed of the super rich makes me sick to my stomach. I don't have any problem with people making a lot of money. I don't doubt they may have indeed earned it, but I feel if you are super wealthy you must pay your fair share, and I believe your fair share is indeed MORE than what the middle and lower class pays. A friend of mine made over $100,000 last year for the first time. He paid LESS taxes because of it. He himself thought that was sick. Because he made MORE, his tax rate went down.

There are so many tax loopholes and ways to work the system that many of the super rich pay next to nothing in taxes. How do they do it? They can afford high priced accountants to come up with schemes...legal schemes to get out of paying taxes. I know, a good friend of mine does it for a living. He's given me advice and some of the ideas he comes up with are quite clever, but by no means fair. The fact is, the more money you have the easier it is to pay fewer taxes.

Other than those two points, I was very impressed with the speach. I look forward to seeing the RNC next month. Though if Bush's speach this morning in Missouri is any indication of what's to come, I'm not sure I can sit through it. Did anyone watch that speach this morning? As soon as he got started he tried scaring the nation into thinking that Kerry is going to raise everyone's taxes.

I guess that brings me to another question. So many people cry that Kerry is going to spend, spend, spend, and raise taxes again and again. That's been the Republican mantra since I can remember. If I'm not mistaken under eight years of Clinton, debt was being paid off, and the had an enormous budget surplus. Does that sound like a "tax and spend liberal"? That is certainly how he was painted while he ran. Even if he was a tax and spender, wouldn't that at least be better than what we have now? Now we have a spender and spender. We're just putting everything on a credit card. Over the next several years the biggest expense to our country will be interest on debt. Bigger than all the money we spend on defense, bigger than all the money we spend on healthcare, bigger than all the money we spend on education.

Certainly doesn't sound like the Republican way of running the country to me. Fiscal responsibility is extremely important. George simply doesn't get that.