Hillary Clinton’s concession speech Saturday was the story of the weekend. But the dueling speeches by John McCain and Barack Obama on Tuesday night, after the last primaries, are what voters  and campaign operatives  should be revisiting.

McCain chose to speak early in the evening, before the polls closed in South Dakota and Montana, thereby getting the jump on Obama. He read a disjointed set of remarks at a badly staged rally at the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner, La. Here’s part of an e-mail message I received as McCain spoke, from a Republican who admires him: “They could have done so well tonight, shown a tone of confidence. Instead it looks like a bad Congressional race: dumb green puke background, small crowd ... Makes me want to cry.”

Soon after Republicans finished shedding tears of frustration, Democrats were weeping tears of joy. Obama spoke about an hour later in a packed sports arena in St. Paul, Minn. His speech was well written and well delivered. He closed with quite a peroration, promising among other things that “generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs for the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

It was lofty oratory, exciting and even moving. Only later, in the light of day, might one pause to wonder: Would Obama’s election really mark the moment when Americans began to care for the sick? And while Obama would surely seek legislation regulating greenhouse gases, isn’t it a little much to promise that his election would not only slow the rise of the oceans but cause the planet to begin “to heal”?