RNC chair praises McCain compared to Dem presidential candidates

RNC Chair Mike Duncan portrayed Dem presidential candidates as a threat to Americans' pocketbooks, guns and safety Saturday morning in a speech to GOP delegates.

Duncan spliced video clips of comments by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to suggest they fundamentally don't understand the economy or how to tell the truth. He said Democrats have two liberals and two lawyers as their candidates for president and contrasted that with presumptive GOP nominee John McCain.

"We have a westerner and a warrior," Duncan said.

Duncan largely gave GOP activists a pep talk about what's at stake in this fall's elections and the party's chances of holding onto the presidency. But he also acknowledged the difficult environment Republicans face this fall, pointing to several special elections for the U.S. House that Dems have won in recent months.

"I can give you lots of reasons, but I can give you more excuses," Duncan said, calling those losses a wake up call for the party.

He said part of the Dems' success has been their ability to portray their candidates as conservatives.

"The Democrats are taking our principles," he said.

Duncan also told delegates a story about President Abraham Lincoln and the RNC's chair talking to him before the election of 1864 and the chance he would lose. Duncan described a country weary about the ongoing war and an opponent who "promised peace but not victory." He said Lincoln knew he would be beaten -- and badly -- unless something dramatic happened. Duncan said Union forces then began to turn the tide of the war, and Lincoln won re-election.

"You're the difference between winning and losing in this country," Duncan told the delegates. "You're the front line against the 527s, the unions and the interest groups who are going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to elect Democrats."

Listen to a media availability Duncan did following his speech here.

-- By JR Ross