Now That The GOP Convention Is Over . . .

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It's time to review what the news media said about Bush's speech.

Here is a link to an earlier Hedgehog post quoting some fawning comments by various old media types about Kerry's speech at the Democrat convention. Have you read or heard anywhere in the old news media comments anything like this about Bush's speech? If you have, particularly from the old warriors like Dan Rather, please e-mail me.

And yet even if Bush's speech was not a hit with the old news media, it was a smash with voters. ABC News (radio) reported this morning that 28 million people tuned in for Bush's speech. And there's this, from Fred Barnes:

A feared outcome for the Republican convention was that it would stop the
pro-Bush momentum created by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. That didn't
happen. Instead, the speeches by Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Zell Miller, Cheney, and Bush built on that momentum. Whose
speech got the more favorable reaction? Bush's. Really. At 17 focus groups
organized by Democratic consultant Bob Beckel in battleground states, voters
were mesmerized by Bush, especially when he talked about the war on terror. At
an MSNBC focus group in Cincinnati run by pollster Frank Luntz, 13 of 21
undecided voters jumped to Bush after hearing his speech.

Hmmm. I wonder what those internal Kerry polls are showing. I suspect they had something to do with his desperate midnight rally about an hour after Bush's speech was over.

It's too early to say the tide has turned but I sure hope so.