Romney burns no barns in acceptance speech

The zealots on Fox News were ecstatic.

The prunes on MSNBC were aghast.

Somewhere in the middle lies the truth about Mitt Romney’s speech last night.

Here it is—if you can handle it.

First, let it be said that Mitt Romney is not now nor will he ever be Winston Churchill; he’s not even Condoleezza Rice. Romney is naturally reserved, refined and reticent—making him a rather tepid, robotic speech deliverer; the anti-Obama, if you will.

And maybe that’s the point.

Thursday night, Romney faced three immediate challenges:

Here’s how he did on each.

Show emotion

Two critical parts of any speech are the introduction and the conclusion. The Laws of Primacy and Recency suggest that what people most remember—if they remember anything at all—are the introduction and the conclusion.

Here, Romney showed his most memorable emotion.

His intro was classic; not the beginning of his speech, but rather the way he entered the hall. The decision to have the candidate walk in State of the Union-style, at ease, smiling, shaking hands, kissing women and hugging friends was the most human part of his night, warm even.