Mitt Romney will need to do more to impress voters, as the candidate received low speech scores after the Republican National Convention last week.
According to the Business Insider, 38 percent of Americans rated Romney’s acceptance speech as “good” or “excellent.” This Gallup poll score was worse than Republican Bob Dole’s speech in 1996.
Steve Scholl, 21, a senior physical education major from Kittanning, Pa. and member of the Republican Party, thinks that the speech ratings will not be directly correlated to the number of votes that both leading candidates receive on Election Day.
“I’d rather focus on what they actually do and not what they say,” Scholl said. “That’s why I don’t pay much attention to presidential speeches. Any politician can tell you what you want to hear.”
Scholl believes Romney’s speech was clear. According to The Week, Romney portrayed himself as a “generic Republican” and not going into in-depth controversial issues. In addition, Romney took several attacks on Obama.
“You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him,” Romney said.
Romney said that Obama’s hope and change had a powerful appeal to viewers. In spite of the attacks, Scholl found that the speech was not extraordinary.
“It was exactly what I’d expected,” Scholl said. “He made his points on how he differs from Obama.”
Romney said that his business career will make him a better president than Obama because he can use it to restore the economy.
Scholl believed Romney’s speech was predictable. However, Chris Peco, 21, a senior history major from Pittsburgh and the president of the group Young Americans for Liberty had different expectations on Romney’s speech.
“It was surprising to me because I think the speech itself was good, and he seemed passionate,” Peco said. “Romney’s speeches are usually cut and dry, but he seemed passionate the other night.”
According to CNN, Romney revealed more about his family, faith and career. He even opened up his speech about how his parents showed him unconditional love.
Peco also believes that the ratings of these acceptance speeches do not correlate with the candidate’s votes.
“I think Romney’s votes will be more than his speech ratings because you will have Obama close in votes with Romney,” Peco said. “It’s usually even in the popular vote when it comes to the election.”
In 2004, John Kerry’s speech was rated slightly better than Bush. However, he lost the election.
Brian Cushanick, 24, a senior history major from Pittsburgh and a member of the SRU College Democrats, believes that Romney’s speech was a way for him to change his big business man title into a down-to-earth human being.
“I don’t think he really knows what people are going through,” Cushanick said. “He suits me as someone unaware of the economic society that we’re in. We are in a depression and not a repression where as a recession would take weeks to come out of.”
Cushanick believes that the convention’s reaction to Romney’s speech was nearly clueless.
“The RNC people were completely unaware of the actual financial problem,” Cushanick said. “They are unaware of the poor and lower class.”
Cushanick emphasized on the condition of the economy.
“Republicans don’t understand that if there wasn’t a middle class, we can’t work,” Cushanick said. “They aren’t taking the poor in consideration. They are taking views from the rich men. We can’t be cutting education and medical insurances. Nobody has jobs.”
He also shed light on his views on Romney’s campaign financials.
“I want to know where Romney is getting all of the money from,” Cushanick said. “Michigan is bankrupt. Obama is getting money from rallies and donations from people.”
According to Business Week, Romney made trips around the world to meet foreign leaders to fundraise for his campaign.
“I think Obama would win, not because I’m Democratic, but Obama is going to dominate the debate, Cushanick said. “Paul Ryan might win the Presidential Debate. He runs on the stances that everyone agrees on.”
