Continued: Editorial: GOP leaves St. Paul with new vigor

The convention curtain came down Thursday night on an invigorated Republican Party and its freshly minted presidential ticket, John McCain and Sarah Palin. Score the St. Paul convention a success for the GOP -- despite, or maybe even aided by, its hurricane-shortened format. Three punchy nights of political infomercial may have served this party better than four repetitious ones to convey its desired message to American voters.

That message was topped with a rousing acceptance speech by McCain that stressed his intention to change Washington. That notion was cheered by his audience at the Xcel Energy Center, even though their party has controlled the presidency for 28 of the past 40 years.

"We need to change the way government does almost everything'' by "getting back to basics,'' he said. He promised low taxes, energy independence, a healthier economy and more bipartisanship in Washington. He even took a shot at his own party, saying Republicans lost the trust of Americans when they "gave in to the temptation of corruption.''

Those words sought to acknowledge the anxiety of Americans disappointed by the trend lines of the last eight years and torn between renewing the GOP lease on the White House or giving Democrats the keys. The back-to-back political theater of the past two weeks may have settled the matter for some. But it has also exposed weaknesses in both tickets. We think both have work to do to assuage the doubts that linger after the confetti is swept away.

Obama saw that the Republicans aren't going to stop painting him as inexperienced and unaccomplished just because they put a first-term, small-state governor on their ticket. The first-term senator from Illinois and former state legislator and law professor can't invent a new résumé. His challenge will be to move voters' focus from experience to an even more fundamental presidential quality -- sound judgment.

Obama and Biden are eager to talk about the nation's ailing economy and to tout their ideas for making health care and higher education more affordable. They've yet to counter criticism that those efforts would be funded by job-killing tax increases on businesses and affluent Americans. They also need to make a convincing argument that they can lead bipartisan efforts to address the nation's challenges -- a case McCain made well last night.

For their part, Republicans said too little in St. Paul about how they propose to bring affordable health care to all Americans or rebuild the nation's aging infrastructure. They didn't explain how their plan to continue the Bush-era tax cuts jibes with the need to reduce the swelling national debt.

The GOP convention drove home the story of McCain's heroism as a prisoner of war. But it did little to assure Americans that he learned the hard lesson that most Americans took away from Vietnam and absorbed anew in this decade: The United States should go to war only as a last resort, with clear and defensible objectives, and should never manipulate facts to justify it. McCain's inclination to use military force as a foreign-policy tool remains worrisome to many Americans.

So do the energy intentions of both parties. It's crucial that the next president lead the nation in efforts to reduce oil consumption and find new energy sources in the long term while still protecting American pocketbooks from oil-price shocks in the near term. Obama's energy pronouncements are too vague about the next four years. McCain's plan for the long term, and how he proposes to get the nation there, were drowned out by the delegates' chant "drill, baby, drill."

It's already been a tumultuous political year. But there are eight more weeks to go before Nov. 4, and there is much more that should be said.

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This page will say more in coming days about the Twin Cities' experience in hosting the Republican convention. But to willing volunteers, dedicated public servants, civic-minded business contributors and the many, many others who gave this Minnesota convention a very good name, we won't wait: Bravo, and thanks.