“Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight,” he said at the end of his speech. “Nothing is inevitable here. We're Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.”

Much of the address, though delivered at one of the most prominent moments of a presidential campaign, was little different from the stump speech he has been delivering across the country. And it was often offered in a monotone as he stood before a solid-colour backdrop that flicked from green to blue. The reaction was far more subdued than it was the night before for his running mate, Palin. There were stretches in which he drew only a smattering of applause.

“I liked the conservative tone and that he was talking about being prolife, self-sufficient — let's keep the money from countries that don’t like us,” said Peggy Lambert, a delegate from Maryville, Tennessee. “But man, Sarah Palin! John is gonna have trouble keeping up with her.”

One of the livelier moments of the evening came when McCain was interrupted by several antiwar protestors who had infiltrated the hall. Their signs were quickly ripped from their hands, and they were carried out as the crowd shouted, “USA! USA!”

McCain, who by now has become accustomed to these kinds of interruptions, responded with a smile. “Please don't be diverted by the ground noise, the static,” McCain said, before adding “Americans want us to stop yelling at each other.”

McCain faced the challenge on Thursday of pivoting from making an appeal to Republican base voters to reaching out to the larger general election audience watching him. Accordingly, there were relatively few mentions of divisive social issues as he returned to the way he has historically presented himself: as an iconoclast willing to challenge his own party. That image was shaken this year as he as appeared to adjust some positions in navigating the primaries.

... contd.