John McCain’s speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination was awful. Yes, it yanked the “change” flag out of Barack Obama’s hands and planted it on the GOP‘s ramparts, and yes, McCain admirably ripped his own party, and yes, there were touching moments of personal revelation.

But the speech was disorganized, overly vetted, sometimes banal, sometimes self-centered and devoid of forthright and realistic discussion of what bothers most voters: a sagging economy. What was needed was some straight talk, which I have provided here: “We’ve been hearing for years now that we’re in or approaching a recession. Gentlepeople, by any measure, we are not in a recession, but if we keep talking like down-in-the-mouth Democrats do, we’ll certainly sink into one.