Rate Obama's Speech: Was The One's Speech a ten or a one?

[Lunar]

I think this speech is hitting every punch perfectly and preempting many of the big arguments we expect to see in the coming months.

I will rate it full after I watch the media's reaction, but I figure around an A.

[Lunar]

AND HE CLOSES WITH A SCRIPTURE REFERENCE

[Lunar]

1-10, but you use a letter scale?

IRONY

I like the fireworks.

[Lunar]

C+

His stump speech in front of 88k people.

I'm not sure how accurate that is.

[Lunar]

I can't wait till 80% of the forum will rate McCains acceptance speech as C-...MCSAME SUXXX....

Well, Obama is a far more talented speaker than McCain.  McCain's will likely be better if he talks from the gut like the Saddleback forum, but I'm not sure if he can do that for 45 minutes.

I don't see how this speech could be lower than a B-, even from a partisan perspective, but of course bias knows no boundarires.

[Lunar]

Even FOX hinted that the speech actually matched the spectacle.

I'm waiting to see what Kristol says.

[Lunar]

And Kristol, who can remove the silver lining from any Democratic crowd, said that Obama "exceeded expectations" and "was an awfully impressive performance."

[Lunar]

FOX's other commentator, some generic blond: "How many times have the Democrats gave this exact same speech in the last 20 years?"  "How can Obama go so negative on McCain and claim to be representing unity."  "This convention was only held in Colorado because it's a swing state"

[Lunar]

I am always just about 100% wrong on grading speaches, but here goes anyway......

These things always get graded on a curve.

I read the text of the speach before Obama started speaking, and I thought it read better than it was actually delivered.

If John McCain (or, groping for the impossible) George W. Bush gave a speach this well, we would all be stunned.... but this is Obama.

I thought the "temple of Obama" did not work well.. it just looked a tad too lofty.

Biden clearly exceeded expectations, which may have actually hurt Obama a bit in that the contrast was not as great as it might have been.

Thought the delivery was (for Obama) a touch stilted.

On content, his addressed what he needed to do.

He dealt with the National Security issue, which he had to do.

B+

Is the target of the speech people who are already extremely familiar with Obama's speaking skills or the far less politically aware swing voters?  My question is, more simply, are the people to whom the speech is addressed going to judge the speech on a relative scale?

[Lunar]

I think this speech is hitting every punch perfectly and preempting many of the big arguments we expect to see in the coming months.

I will rate it full after I watch the media's reaction, but I figure around an A.

C+/B-, from a purely non-partisan perspective.  It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great and I don't think it moved the ball a single yard.

BTW... why did you ask us to rate 1-10 and then put in a grading system? 

Irony, I think I'm hilarious.

I think the speech will have an impact by, as I said, preempting certain themes (Like "Country First" and "Obama's a celebrity" and "Obama's an elitist") and attempting to spin them the other way around.  I also think this speech effectively painted this election as Democrat vs. Republicans & Bush instead of Obama, Obama, Obama.

[Lunar]

Frank Luntz (Republican pollster pro) said the speech was great and predicted a 10 point lead 72 hours from now.  Not saying that means anything, but it's interesting.

[Lunar]

Frank Luntz (Republican pollster pro) said the speech was great and predicted a 10 point lead 72 hours from now.  Not saying that means anything, but it's interesting.

That's less than what McCain's people were anticipating. Probably accurate though, voters really are that impressionable.

He was really impressed by it.  He says he's never seen anyone on their feet for so long during any of the 8 conventions he's been to.

For what it's worth (little).

[Lunar]

Greta on FOX is a one-track record, inserting attacks on Obama in every single question she was asking the pollster Luntz.  "Can he deliver, will the message really stick considering Obama doesn't have much substance?" etc. x10.

I'm just flipping back and forth between MSNBC and FOX to get the two extremes.  Pat Buchanan was quite generous to the speech as well - the other commentators called it "gushing."

[Lunar]

I just saw McCain's congratulations ad!

[Lunar]

I think Obama may have intentionally removed MLK references out of his speech in order to undercut McCain's 'congratulations' ad!.  The news media hasn't really covered the fact that today is the anniversary of the MLK "I have a dream" speech THAT much, and I just saw the third 'Congrats' ad which vaguely compliments Obama for "this most historic of days."

I do not think swing voters will get that reference.

[Lunar]

Another thought since my neighbor's noise is keeping me up and I'm waiting for the melatonin to kick in:

If Barack Obama can successfully cast himself as the "DEMOCRATIC" candidate and can successfully force McCain to be the "REPUBLICAN" candidate, does he have an increased chance of winning?

I see all this talk on CNN (mostly CNN, they love this story) about how one third of Hillary voters do not support Obama right now.  To me, it seems like that number can only improve for Obama unless he makes sexist remarks or something.  It seems that everyone who is bitter about the primaries has already disaffected and is available to win back while few of the bitter pUMAs are supporting Obama waiting to jump ship to McCain.  That isn't real analysis, that is just guesswork, but it seems fitting.

Put more simply:

Obama wants to make himself the same as any white Democratic candidate (while not hiding from race)
Oama wants to make McCain the same as Bush