Poll: Romney receives low score for convention speech

(CBS News) Mitt Romney's speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa last week received a lower score than any presidential candidate's convention speech since the poll starting asking the question after Republican and Democratic conventions in 1996, according to the polling firm Gallup.

Only 38 percent of respondents said his speech was excellent or good, compared to 47 percent who thought 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain's speech was excellent or good. McCain's acceptance speech received the next lowest approval ratings in Gallup's polling. Ten percent of respondents also said Romney's speech was terrible, twice the percentage who thought McCain's speech, which received the second highest negative rating, was terrible.

Respondents in the same Gallup poll are split on if Romney's speech would make them more or less likely to vote for the Republican candidate. Forty percent of voters said they are more likely to vote for him while 38 percent of voters said they are less likely; 22 percent said they don't know or their opinion did not change. The margin of error is 4 percentage points and 1,045 adults were polled between August 31 and September 1.

Unsurprisingly, Romney's speech appealed more to Republicans, with 83 percent who said it makes them more likely to vote for him. Only nine percent of Democrats, meanwhile, said they are more likely to vote for Romney after hearing his speech.

The most important sector of voters to persuade, however, are the independents, and they are evenly split on their response to Romney's acceptance speech. Thirty-six percent said they are more likely to back him while 33 percent said they are less likely. Another 30 percent said they are unsure or their view did not change.

The Gallup poll, which also conducted its analysis on the number of Americans who reported watching the conventions, found that last week's Republican convention was the second-lowest-viewed of all eight conventions Gallup polled since 1996. Nearly half of respondents - 48 percent - said they watched little or none of Romney's nominating convention compared to 29 percent who said they watched little or none of the 2008 Republican convention. Bob Dole's 1996 nominating convention was the least watched with more than half of respondents saying they watched little or none.

"Americans' relatively weak reaction to the Republican convention does not appear to have hurt their likelihood of voting for Romney so far, although it apparently is related to the lack of a typical convention bounce," Gallup's news release said.

[Alex07083]

Electile Dysfunction:

Blame it on Bush

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzHAlwEK7a4

Great video

[ge556]

I wish it were not just the personality that people judge Romney on. The lies should disqualify him.

[sjc_1]

Republicans are 28% of the voters, they will run out of old white men soon. The key this year is women, President Obama has a 20% lead from women voters across the nation.

If Elizabeth Warren can defeat Brown in Massachusetts, then we will pick up a seat in the Senate. We have Missouri and Maine as possible. We need seats in the Senate and to eliminate the Tea Party in the House.

Let's get America moving again, we can not stand still and play political games. The stakes are too high, the Tea Party taking us to the brink of default last summer was the last straw!

[whatgop]

I think that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) accurately described whats happening to the GOP when he said:
"Even if Romney should cobble together enough of a coalition to defeat Obama, the long-term trends are not good for the GOP. That's a problem Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was addressing this week when he told The Washington Post:

"The demographics race we're losing badly. We're not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term."

Graham's Communication's Director Kevin Bishop told Patch: "What the Senator said is a fact. It's not a matter of opinion," Bishop said. "It's something that (former Fla. Sen. Mel) Martinez, (former Fla. Gov.) Jeb Bush and (Fla. Sen.) Marco Rubio have been talking about for a while."

[montanatrace]

Let's see, if we ask 100 DEMS if Romney gave a good speech, how many will say yes? Liberal CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, Huffington.................... you don't report the news, you make the news. FOX, almost as guilty too. Integrity in journalism died decades ago. What a shameful profession it has become.

[ForestWalk]

This guy can't even deliver a speach - how in heck will he be able to deliver a new economy?

[dectra]

Agreed, Forest.

His "speech" was so wooden and lacking in details he could have been running for president of the local Moose Lodge.

If he's the best they've got, consider me STILL ex-GOP.

[erin_yu]

Mitt Romney is such a phony, and so disconnected from everyday Americans, that it's difficult to imagine how the Republican party chose him to be its presidential candidate. Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry had already warned during the Republican primaries that Romney was the weakest candidate the GOP could field. It doesn't take a genius to see that Romney's rivals were right. Barack Obama's incredible luck is coming through for him again. Just as they botched their convention last week with the Clint Eastwood episode, Republicans seem to be their own worst enemy.

[realisticfromthemiddle]

It's a punt from the GOP.....again. Why else would they nominate their second RINO in a row? Three years before he was nominated, McCain was the most hated man in the GOP because he worked with democrats. Last election, Romney was excoriated for his "liberal" decisions as governor.

[Indyswim66]

No big surprise. Romney... and his speech... were yawner's. Hard to imagine this guy could change anything.

[montanatrace]

You're right. Obama has proven he can change things.

[josephp5]

Detroit is doing great now. But when Obama took office, it looked like it would fail. Obama bet on Detroit when Romney wrote an article titled, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." Obama deserves credit for all the auto jobs that he saved. Romney would have let the American auto industry collapse, and then let vultures like Bain pick the meat off the bones.

[josephp5]

Even if you think the economy is doing poorly and it's Obama's fault, why is that automatically a reason to vote for Romney?

Romney has given us no reasons to vote for him. He won't share his specific plans for fixing the economy (although we can guess it's probably just the usual Republican trifecta of cutting taxes for the rich, cutting regulations on corporations, and drill baby drill).

The only thing that Romney said in his speech about why people should vote for him is that the economy is bad, so therefore vote for Romney. That's not good enough.

[dj_chi]

"Only 38 percent of respondents said his speech was excellent or good, compared to 47 percent who thought 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain's speech was excellent or good. McCain's acceptance speech received the next lowest approval ratings in Gallup's polling."

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Ahhhh hahahahahahahaha!!!! And you wonder why Vegas and overseas bookies are increasing their odds that Obama is gonna win.