MINNEAPOLIS - For as dazzling and memorable as Sarah Palin was two nights ago, John McCain provided a near perfect contrast last night. His speech was mostly boring, eminently forgettable and - here's the good news for McCain - largely irrelevant.

By now most people know the podium-in-front-of-big-crowd is not typically McCain's best setting. And even though the stage that had been reconfigured from the night before, jutting out into the crowd of delegates to give it a more town hall type feel, McCain looked less than comfortable at times as he plodded his way through the prepared text, interrupted occasionally by war protesters who were immediately drowned out by chants of U-S-A from the crowd.

Expectations were not terribly high for McCain, and he managed to clear the bar - though not by much. The speech was heavy on biography and light on specifics as McCain sought to remind people that he was a hero who had learned deep lessons about patriotism, and that he is a fighter who is empathetic to the difficulties Americans face and will go to battle on their behalf.

"Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here," McCain exhorted the crowd in a finishing flourish that provided the night's only real moment of drama. "We're Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history."

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was right when he said earlier this week that while policies are always an important part of any race, the election this year is fundamentally not about issues.

For better or worse, this year's contest is a referendum on Barack Obama. After two weeks of conventions in Denver and St. Paul filled with political drama, it still is. Last night McCain presented himself to the country as an experienced and independent-minded alternative to Obama who, along with his new pistol-packing pit bull reformer of a vice president, will bring his own brand of change to Washington.

In the biggest speech of his life, McCain turned in a performance that was solid, pedestrian, and safe. In a year of conventions marked by spectacular speeches, McCain's was merely average. But, given the circumstances this year, that may not turn out to be a bad thing at all.