By ANN McFEATTERS, Scripps Howard News Service

Sometimes it's as if we never got out of high school. We insist on choosing our presidents as if it is a popularity contest.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- After two boisterous national political conventions and two powerful acceptance speeches, which largely succeeded in rallying the party faithful, Republican and Democratic insiders agree both Barack Obama and John McCain must do a better job of convincing swing voters they have a plan for prescribing steroids for the weak economy.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- So, it's up to us, folks.The balloons are popped, the fireworks are spent, grand acceptance speeches have been made. The elaborate Hollywood-type sets have been struck, the flags and strange hats are packed away, the country music CDs silenced. The conventions are over.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- John McCain and Sarah Palin are vowing "reform" and "change" if they get to the White House. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are promising the same. What does each team mean by "change," which voters began demanding months ago?

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- When the off-and-on Republican convention got down to business, the de facto theme became who is the real John McCain? The answers have proved to be conflicting, provoking more questions.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The confirmation that Sarah Palin's 17-year-old unwed daughter is pregnant has turned the campaign strategies of both Republican and Democratic parties askew. Women's issues will be more front and center. But both parties will be far more careful in how they attack the other.

And now it's John McCain's turn to try to capture America's attention by using the spruced-up platform of the Twin Cities in Middle America to tell his life story and make the case for why he, not Barack Obama, should be the next president.

DENVER -- As Republican operatives scampered out of the Mile High City toward their own conclave in the Twin Cities, work crews tore down the GOP banners that scathingly referred to the Democratic convention as a mile high and an inch deep.

DENVER -- As Republican operatives scampered out of the Mile High City toward their own conclave in the Twin Cities, work crews tore down the GOP banners that scathingly referred to the Democratic convention as a mile high and an inch deep.

DENVER -- Four years ago an unknown state senator from Illinois named Barack Obama lit up Democratic hopes with a rousing speech at their convention in New York. Here in the Mile High City, new party stars are struggling to be born.