Was Mitt Romney's convention speech really a dud?

Not since Bob Dole's GOP convention speech in 1996 has a nominee's address fared so poorly with the public, says a new Gallup poll. Other surveys, though, show a definite gain for Mitt Romney.

|
David Goldman/AP
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.

Was Mitt Romney’s GOP convention speech a dud? That’s what a new Gallup poll appears to indicate. The just-released survey shows that Mr. Romney’s Thursday night address scored low compared with previous such speeches.

Thirty-eight percent of respondents rated Romney’s big moment as “excellent” or “good,” according to Gallup. Thirty-seven percent judged it “OK,” “poor,” or “terrible.”

That’s “the lowest rating of any of the eight speeches Gallup has tested since Bob Dole’s GOP acceptance speech in 1996,” according to Gallup editor Frank Newport.

Plus, the Republican National Convention as a whole didn’t sway many voters, according to Gallup. Forty percent of respondents said it would make them “more likely” to mark their ballots for Romney, while 38 percent said it would make them “less likely” to vote GOP.

Well, we’ve got a couple of comments here. The first is that one poll does not a trend make, even if it’s from a pollster as respected as Gallup. Other surveys indicate that Romney got at least a modest bounce out of his nominating convention in Tampa, Fla. Rasmussen Reports’ daily tracking poll now gives Romney a 48 percent to 44 percent lead over President Obama. That’s about a six-point gain for the GOP nominee over the past week.

Second, self-reported voting intentions – saying something will make you more or less likely to cast your ballot a certain way – is an imprecise measure of election outcomes. Lots of things affect an individual’s vote. In retrospect, it’s often hard to single out a particular event as the moment that pushed a voter one way or another. Events that seemed important at the time can fade by November.

Third, the real effect of the GOP convention can’t be measured until after this week’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. It’s possible that Mr. Obama may not get even a modest boost from the event – and it’s possible that he’ll end up with polls showing him a consensus leader.

If the race remains roughly tied, or with only a percentage point or two separating the contenders. Romney might be able to claim that he did better out of the conventions than the incumbent did, writes New York Times polling analyst Nate Silver on Monday.

Romney’s bounce “may turn out to be ‘just fine’ once we see a few more polls, and how the numbers move after Charlotte,” writes Mr. Silver.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Was Mitt Romney's convention speech really a dud?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2012/0903/Was-Mitt-Romney-s-convention-speech-really-a-dud
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe