I Score Condi 9, Ryan 7

Condoleezza Rice delivered a thoughtful speech which hit Barack Obama right in the kisser with a swing for the wall lead bat.  There are many reasons why the Obama camp lost a ton last night due to her speech.  She ripped the self righteous race card right out of Obama’s hand and left him standing exposed as a danger to our nation.

Paul Ryan’s speech coach should have done more to eliminate his throat clearing and grunting.  His nice guy appeal was pretty well developed and his attack dog role finally fed the crowd some of the red meat Chris Christie failed to deliver as had been expected.  But overall, his speech was a notch or two down from that delivered by Sarah Palin four years ago.

Ryan did a pretty good job reassuring seniors that his vision does not push them off the cliff.  But he should have stayed away from criticizing Obama for the stimulus.  Granted, Obama took tax payer money and, in the Chicago way, corruptly used it to enrich his supporters and cronies rather than help Americans get back to work.  But Ryan has the TARP vote on his record and he opened that door for the Obama campaign to exploit.  And if they are politically smart, which I think they are, expect them to  start doing just that today and just in time to throw Romney off of his game before his big speech tonight.

I was also a little surprised that the crowd in attendance was so uninspired with their applause during Ryan’s speech.  He was a little off in the delivery of his applause lines and the crowd seemed a bit unsure when to cheer.  It made the enthusiasm seem a little forced.

Overall the night went well as far as media events go, except that unless one was watching C-Span, the McConnell, and Paul speeches weren’t widely seen and the Ron Paul video will have to be viewed on YouTube or one of the many Ron Paul websites.

Tonight is really the last chance for the GOP to make the case for the R&R ticket.  Once the dems and the unions go to work on them their bump will be very short lived.