As one of the few people in the country to give Barack Obama’s convention speech an unqualifiedly negative review, I don’t find it surprising that the two tracking polls following the public’s reactions to it both suggest it was a dud. He achieved the same high-water number of 49 percent in Gallup’s poll before the speech as he has received now in the first tally entirely comprising responses after the conclusion of the speech. Those 80,000 people, the fireworks, Stevie Wonder — gornischt. Unless it does something to help him carry Colorado, where the speech was delivered, history will record that Obama spent 45 minutes with 38 million people and, rather than use his magical powers of rhetorical elevation on them, tried to get them to think as little of John McCain as he does and got nowhere. Efforts to ascribe the cause of his failure to increase his numbers to the surprise choice of Sarah Palin are all well and good, but they miss the point. Obama’s decision to go so resolutely “negative” may rank as one of the greatest missed opportunities in recent political history.
The Barack Obama Show: A Flop
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