When even Mickey Kaus like Kerry's speech, you know he did well

[dolstein]

To borrow a tired cliche, I wouldn't say he hit a home run last night, but he did hit a solid double, which is more than good enough for those of us who feared that Kerry might pop up. Nearly all the pundits (except for a few Republican whores) agreed that Kerry did what he needed to do (another tired cliche . . .) last night.

I forget who the commentator was, but this one guy made a few shrewed observations. First, regarding the length of the speech . . . this commentator said that the Kerry campaign made a smart move in timing the speech to end close to 11:00 pm, which allowed them to communicate their message in a largely unfiltered fashion. If the speech had ended early, the networks might have given Republican operatives the opportunity to make a rebuttal. That didn't happen, at least on the networks. And for those of you who were wondering why the Kerry campaign showed the bio film before network coverage began, that's because the network commentators would simply have talked over it. Second, the Kerry speech was clearly targetd at swing voters, very few of whom were probably watching the speech live. So it didn't really matter whether the speech was too long, since most swing voters would end up hearing only the sound bytes reported in the morning news shows. And the speech was chock full of good sound bytes.

[DrFunkenstein]

1. CNN Was Trying REALLY Hard To Spin It Down

It was laughable. If anyone felt they had credibility, it would have gotten a nice dose of reality last night.

[Melodybe]

2. Every time I think about Kerry mentioning the Saudi Royal family

I realize that the ball is in outer space where gravity can't slow it down.

I disagree with the double comment, if you couldn't guess.

[Nightjock]

3. I thought the timing was almost perfect

I would have liked to have seen the bio, the house lights come up and than have Kerry immediately introduced.
Just a minor complaint -but I LOVED the speech anyway.

[lancdem]

4. I thought it was a home run

but even a double is pretty good! :)

[Az_lefty]

5. I agree, can't wait to hear the shrubs home run attempt...

[GR]

6. It Was A Grandslam And Content Was Sequenced Right...

All the "I'm tougher than Monkey" talk was in the first half, so those of the short attention span persuasion would all see it. As a matter of fact, Drudge had figures showing that viewership dropped off during the second half.

If you ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, you'll hear how listeners to the Lincoln Douglas debates would sit for 3 or 4 hours listening to them speak. Imagine how long today's viewers would last.

And I don't give a flying crap what Mickey Kaus thought. He's a freakin' idiot.

[MISSDem]

7. Even David Brooks said it was good.

What more could one ask?