McCain is frittering away his opportunities to raise real issues and explain his positions. There are only two months left, and if he wasted his convention speech speaking in generalities and banalities, then he apparently has no effective intentions.

For one example, he favors development of nuclear power. Great, I agree. But he needs to explain what he intends to do about the safety concerns that have stopped the development of nuclear energy. I don’t have a clue what he intends to do about those concerns, and I assume he doesn’t either.

The same haziness extends through a series of other issues — medical care, Social Security and Medicare obligations, climate change, etc. He fails to address the issues with satisfactory focus or detail. It seems he expects us all to trust that everything will turn out OK just because he as a POW.

My dream ticket would have been Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich. With them, the Republicans would be debating the Democrats very intelligently and convincingly. With McCain and Palin, all we have is personal appeal.