THE SPEECH – AT 10:24 A.M. ET:  It's too early for major polling on Donald Trump's acceptance speech, although early reports show a generally favorable reaction from the public and a decidedly unfavorable reaction (shock, shock) from the mainstream media.  One traditional Democrat, although a moderate, has an interesting warning for his fellow Dems.  From Doug Schoen at Fox: 

Hillary Clinton and the Democrats should be worried.

Why? Because Donald Trump delivered Thursday night and did what he needed to do. No, he didn’t deliver a speech with great oratorical flourish. No, he didn’t broaden the base of the party significantly though he did speak about minorities and the LGBTQ community in ways that he hadn’t done before.

What Trump did, and he did it very well, was to raise the stakes of the election and define it in his own terms. Law and order, crime in the streets, and terror. He managed to make the argument, compellingly, that these challenges were the central ones America faced and that given the failures of President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his way of change was the only way to go.

It was a long speech, it ran well over an hour and it was repetitive in parts. But that doesn’t matter. Trump was ultimately speaking to a fairly discrete and arguably specific constituency of Americans. Concentrated, though not exclusively, in the swing states of the industrial Midwest.

Trump’s remarks were directed at the 70-odd percent of Americans who feel the country is on the wrong track and his remarks were designed to amplify those feelings and offer – in general terms – a different way forward.

I don’t believe that the pundits necessarily will give this speech high marks and in my own terms, Trump did not do anything that he has not done before on the campaign trail. But what he did do is present a vision of America, a path forward, and a vision of leadership that is very, very different than what the country has had for the last eight years.

COMMENT:  As I noted last night, I don't think it was a great speech, and the delivery was uncertain at best.  But I believe Schoen's analysis – he's a very good commentator – is fundamentally correct, and we may be seeing that in the initial public response to Trump.

The Dems meet next week, and I have a gut feeling, no evidence required, that they may mess it up because they won't be able to control their leftist instincts.  After they go home, we'll start the serious polling.

July 22, 2016