Topic: Why I believe the Republican Convention was a success
.. and the Democratic one was not.
1) Their convention focused on their candidate's strengths. For Bush, this was his perceived decisiveness and the issue of terrorism.
2) Success at rallying the base, Democrats were already as united as they were going to get. On the other hand, the GOP was excited by a number of conservatives.
3) More interesting convention, less scripted. It connected with people emotionally, especially Zell Miller.
4) Better speech and Dubya didn't mess it up. Kerry's speech was lacking in real content, while Dubya's was relatively more specific and forward looking. Karl had been working on this for months, clearly.
5) More favorable media attention and more media attention. The Democrats were more slammed by pundits for being uninteresting, and the media seemed more skeptical at large.
6) Republican themes of anger, fear and general hatred of our common enemies united people. Having a conservative media empire like FOX probably didn't hurt this end.
That's just my 2 cents.