Friday, December 07, 2007

MITT ROMNEY

Place Your Bets: Any Poll Bump For Romney?

Reactions to Romney's speech continue, in the morning papers, in the Corner, around the blogosphere, in my e-mailbox, etc. The upside for Mitt Romney is that indeed, he has managed to command the spotlight for an entire week in a way that few candidates have in this campaign. And while some people were more impressed with the speech than others, there aren't many people saying, "he flopped."

I suspect that this may actually goose his poll numbers a bit, as it probably caused a few people who don't pay much attention to the race or to him to give him a longer look. And to the extent that people are watching it, reading it, or catching snippets on the news, they're seeing him when he's at his best, or somewhere in the same zip code as his best. The word that keeps cropping up among readers who liked the speech is "presidential." Like I said, I thought it was vanilla, but maybe what I took as obvious was what people needed to hear: I won't be taking orders from any Church elders, nativity scenes are good, I like many faiths, and we love religious liberty here in America.

The one reaction that surprises me is Peggy Noonan - one of the all time great speechwriters and wordsmiths - liking the speech overall, but disliking one line:

The only groaner was, "We do not insist on a single strain of religion—rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith." It is a great tragedy that there is no replacement for that signal phrase of the 1980s, "Gag me with a spoon."

You'll recall that I called that the second best line of the speech. I'm probably going to horrify Ms. Noonan by declaring that when I heard the term "symphony of faith" I thought, "hmm, I like that image. That sounds like something Peggy Noonan would write."

12/07 09:50 AMShare