[Bucklion]

Originally Posted by OH10

Man, I hate to do it, but I've got to say that you are not giving W enough credit for his 2004 speech. When he referenced the decision he made to go to Iraq, and how difficult he knew it would be for the families involved, he choked up in a way that made him actually believable. He hit that speech out of the park on that issue.

Kerry, on the other hand, had his speech marred by his inability to take in the moment. Everytime the crowd cheered for a good soundbite, he talked them down and didn't bask in the adulation. His speech came off punchy and uncomfortable.

And you saw it in the polls. Bush got a huge convention spike. Kerry got nothing. After the Republican convention, Bush never seriously trailed in the polls again. It was the turning point, in my opinion, of that election.

Point taken, I was more thinking of 2000...when he couldn't put a coherent sentence together, and everyone publicly was like "Why do we even need the formality of the vote?"