Mitt Romney tonight formally accepted the Republican nomination for President with a speech that included everything from the deep emotion that one has to feel in such a situation to an upbeat vision of the future.
The address covered a wide range of topics, starting with a look back and the hope of the 2008 election and the areas in which he feels President Obama has failed.
He then highlighted many of the grim economic statistics and the considerable difficulties facing the average American today. He then offered his vision of how the future could unfold in his administration.
Obviously your reaction to these ideas depended heavily on your political ideology. Those who see the private sector as the primary engine for lifting our economy would tend to approve while those who feel the government sector is the better path would not.
He took the audience through a brief biography of his life, from watching Armstrong walk on the moon to his campaigns for President. In between he discussed everything from his public service (both in his church and outside it) to his work in the business sector and his efforts to stage the 2002 Olympics.
In discussing his service as governor of Massachusetts he cited his efforts to work with the heavily Democratic legislature and promised to work with both parties if he goes to Washington.
Seeking to reach out to women he made a point of his past efforts to bring women into government service, especially during his tenure as Governor.
He focused a great deal on the economy, discussing the rise in gas prices, the high unemployment figures, etc in a way that reminded me of Ronald Reagan asking voters in 1980 whether they felt themselves better off than they were four years ago.
He argued that since these things have come about after 3+ years of the Obama economic program that it is reasonable to presume that things would continue along that path if he were re-elected. He was also critical of the President’s energy policy, making the argument that while we do want to focus on renewable energy we also need to look to currently available programs like coal and natural gas.
He listed a series of objectives that he pledges to accomplish over the next four years including putting the budget on a path to being balanced. He praised President Obama for the Bin Laden raid but questioned his policies towards Iran and Russia.
Much of the rest of the speech was the standard red meat kind of rhetoric that you expected in this speech and will expect in President Obama’s speech next week.
He concluded with
Prior to the speech there had been speculation about what he needed to accomplish tonight.
Political analyst Charlie Cook said that tonight might be more important than the debates stating:
Swing voters in battleground states have heard Romney called virtually everything short of a corporate grim reaper. They don’t need to consider him a guy they would like to have a beer with, but they need to feel that if he were a neighbor, they could comfortably ask him to collect the newspapers and the mail while they were away. Focus groups show that people perceive Romney as aloof and wonder whether he would even speak to them. His friends say that this is ridiculous, that he’s a terrific guy. But the doubts persist. Tonight is the night Romney needs to fix that.
Similarly, Political Wire suggested that:
“If tonight’s speech is to be successful, Romney has to meet four objectives. One, he has to better introduce himself to the American public; it remains striking that after running for president for much of the past five years, voters still don’t have more than a two-dimensional understanding of the soon-to-be nominee. Two, he needs to convince the public that, while he looks the part, he’s the man Americans are comfortable seeing on their TVs for the next four years. Three, he has to try to close the empathy gap; our most recent NBC/WSJ poll found President Obama holding a 22-point advantage on who cares more about average people. And four, he needs to put some meat on the policy bone to make the case how his plans could actually work better than Obama’s — and how they are different from the past Republican administration. If four hours are going to decide this presidential election, the first hour comes tonight.
Looking at the speech I think he has accomplished that, he came off as reasonable and approachable even if you did not agree with everything he said.
Andrew Sullivan considered it a good effort for Romney but with insufficient focus on Obama and his record:
My instant verdict? A good night for improving Mitt’s personal image; but a sad evening for an actual reality-based critique of Obama’s record, or a coherent set of proposals for the future. He has one argument: the economy sucks and you should fire the president because of it. That’s it.
I thought Bush’s two acceptance speeches and McCain’s were much better. In a word: mediocre, and deeply dishonest as an argument. As a way to soften his awful image: B
Over at Instapundit they generally liked the speech
Not surprisingly the folks at Daily Kos were not as impressed
Huffington Post was also not thrilled but seemed to offer a little more balanced reaction.
I must admit to being a tad disappointed that they both had such a partisan reaction. I expect that there are speeches next week I won’t agree with just as there were this week. But I’d like to think we can all agree a speech is good even if we don’t like the content.
The text of the speech can be found here.