The Speech

Baltimore Sun: "Barack Obama took off the gloves last night.

"Sometimes accused of being too high-minded and elitist, the Democratic presidential nominee used a rock-star stage in Mile High stadium to get down and dirty, striking back hard - and repeatedly at John McCain."

Chicago Tribune editorial: "the electricity generated by a firm and confident speech can last until November, Barack Obama may look back on a crisp Thursday night in Denver as the megawatt moment that won him the presidency. If, though, Obama's reluctance to stray from traditional Democratic orthodoxy flummoxes the voters who matter most, he may recall Thursday as the night he played it too safe. The pageantry and Obama's delivery were spectacular -- as in, a sensory spectacle. The goal of every convention is to reassure and motivate true believers. By that measure, Thursday's glittery message machine outshined a sometimes turgid convention. The football stadium, the night, the crowd, the lights -- as the clock clicked toward 10 in Chicago, we half-expected campaign strategist David Axelrod to dump Gatorade on Obama"

The libs loved it. Josh Marshall:

"I thought this was a very strong speech. About exactly what was needed. It was a strong speech. He made the case for himself; he laid out clear policy goals; and he aggressively set forth the stakes of the campaign. He made the case against John McCain while not attacking his character -- which makes a clear contrast with McCain's aggressively personal, denigrating campaign strategy.

"I've heard a few people say that he seemed to hold back from giving the soaring speech he might have given. But I suspect that was intentional and I think a good decision."

John Judis in the New Republic:

"I have heard Barack Obama deliver speeches better, but in this acceptance speech, Obama did exactly what he needed to do to set the stage for the fall campaign.

"He had to do three things for the fall, which he accomplished in his speech: first, he focused the campaign on the economy--and did so by personalizing the fear and anger that many Americans now feel. Secondly, he answered forcefully arguments about his ability as commander-in-chief. And third, he invoked his own biography to dispel fears that as a president he would favor one group over another."

Andrew Sullivan:

"It was a deeply substantive speech, full of policy detail, full of people other than the candidate, centered overwhelmingly on domestic economic anxiety. It was a liberal speech, more unabashedly, unashamedly liberal than any Democratic acceptance speech since the great era of American liberalism. But it made the case for that liberalism - in the context of the decline of the American dream, and the rise of cynicism and the collapse of cultural unity. His ability to portray that liberalism as a patriotic, unifying, ennobling tradition makes him the most lethal and remarkable Democratic figure since John F Kennedy.

"What he didn't do was give an airy, abstract, dreamy confection of rhetoric. The McCain campaign set Obama up as a celebrity airhead, a Paris Hilton of wealth and elitism. And he let them portray him that way, and let them over-reach, and let them punch him again and again . . . and then he turned around and destroyed them. If the Rove Republicans thought they were playing with a patsy, they just got a reality check."