Watcher's Forum: How Would You Grade Mitt Romney's Acceptance Speech?

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day. This week's question: What grade would you give Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney's acceptance speech?


The Noisy Room: Many will disagree, but I give Mitt Romney's acceptance speech an A+.

This man is the opposite of the arrogant Marxist who is currently our President. He is self-effacing and modest. His speech was not Ronald Reagan's. It was thoroughly Mitt Romney - a deeply religious man who lives what he preaches. He did not offer pretentious grand promises. He reached out to our families, to us and touched our troubled hearts and offered his help, his prayers and his leadership. In short, he offered all he has.

Romney comes from a family who love one another and stay together through thick and thin, good and bad. He is renowned for finishing what he starts and doing the right thing. All of that strength and commitment came through in his speech. He is offering America a fresh start, a chance to heal, a chance to return to our founding principles. To me the offer is to step into the light away from the cliff of darkness we are teetering on with Barack Obama.

I walked away from the speech knowing in my heart that Romney and Ryan will do everything possible to financially right our ship. It will be hard and painful, but if anyone can do it, they can. I also know that they will stand against our enemies. A line was drawn last night:

Every American was relieved the day President Obama gave the order, and Seal Team Six took out Osama bin Laden. But on another front, every American is less secure today because he has failed to slow Iran’s nuclear threat.

In his first TV interview as president, he said we should talk to Iran. We’re still talking, and Iran’s centrifuges are still spinning.

President Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus, even as he has relaxed sanctions on Castro’s Cuba. He abandoned our friends in Poland by walking away from our missile defense commitments, but is eager to give Russia’s President Putin the flexibility he desires, after the election. Under my administration, our friends will see more loyalty, and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone.

We will honor America’s democratic ideals because a free world is a more peaceful world. This is the bipartisan foreign policy legacy of Truman and Reagan. And under my presidency we will return to it once again.

Romney will return our dignity as a nation and our might with the strongest military in the world once more. Our enemies will be dealt with. This man has optimism, morality, goodness AND a spine. And I for one find it deeply refreshing. Strength is not found in arrogance - usually it is found on one's knees in prayer. Only then do you pick up your sword to fight.

Romney's speech was history. I saw the determination in his eyes and heard the emotion in his voice and from his heart. It was a monumental speech for those that listened intently. It was a return to that shining city on a hill.

GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD: Bee minus - hoping Mitt"d give 44 props for Drones Gone Wild, killing OBL, Libya and keeping Gitmo open before launching a devastating critique of 44"s disasterous, discombobulated, disappointing By Stander in Chief democrazy phobic, dissing allies and encouraging adversaries Fo Po w/great bleeding bits of blood red meat.

JoshuaPundit: The grade you give Governor Romney's acceptance speech depends, I think very much on what it was intended to do. If it was intended to humanize Governor Romney and to push back against the caricature of him the Obama media has painted as a heartless, inhumane plutocrat it succeeded admirably.

Mitt Romney is not some slick con man moving his head robotically back and forth between a couple of teleprompters. He is, in essence, a decent, public spirited and highly accomplished human being, and while that came across, it struck a somewhat odd note because the American people are unused to that. It's been a long time since we had that quality of decency showing up so obviously in one of our presidents, and people naturally keep looking for the con.

Governor Romney hit all the right notes in his speech...his plans for the economy, religious freedom, even President Obama's abysmal foreign policy. The one thing lacking as far as I was concerned was that he failed to attack President Obama's record directly and hold him sufficiently accountable. He characterized the president as a guy with good intentions who simply got in over his head and failed.

In my opinion, President Obama very much intended things to go the way they have, his intentions were not at all good and that needs to be hammered home to the American people in no uncertain terms. The only saving grace is that Marco Rubio and Clint Eastwood did brilliant jobs of doing just that before Governor Romney came on, and that may in fact have been exactly how things were planned.

I'd give Governor Romney a B+, especially since the speech didn't contain a lot of 15 second soundbites and money quotes. But it was from the heart and rang true, and for those who heard it, that might be more than enough.

The Independent Sentinel: A+ He accomplished what he intended to do. No one can say he is not a good person - a real person.

David Gerstman, AKA Soccer Dad: I did not watch Mitt Romney's acceptance speech, but I have read it.

There are two points that are worth noting.

As the candidate began to make his case he said:

I wish President Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed. But his promises gave way to disappointment and division. This isn't something we have to accept. Now is the moment when we CAN do something. With your help we will do something.


Most people expect as Barry Rubin writes, "There will be hatred and vicious character assassination," this week at the Democratic National Convention. The Democrats will be about President Obama not the country. Perhaps Romney's line about hoping for Obama to succeed was cynical. Still it shows that Romney believes that this election about the nation, not about one man. I fully expect the proceedings in Charlotte to be about one man, not the nation.

Later on Romney said:

We were Mormons and growing up in Michigan; that might have seemed unusual or out of place but I really don't remember it that way. My friends cared more about what sports teams we followed than what church we went to.

Obama prides himself on being the other. Even his wife's comment about first being proud of her country when it elected her husband confirms this worldview. Obama believes that America redeemed itself by electing him.

For Romney, there are no "others" in the United States, but a heterogeneous melting pot. We are accepted despite our differences.

In these two ways Romney established how he is the antithesis of the incumbent.

He sees the election about more than himself and he feels like he is part of this great country, not as one who sites in judgment of his fellow citizens judging their worthiness.

By positioning himself in stark contrast to Obama, I give Romney an A, for his acceptance speech.

Rhymes With Right: I would have to give Romney a B+, since he is not a great orator. My view of the speech as something different from what we usually get is found here.

Well, there you have it.

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