Rice's address had a sophistication, ease, and grace almost never found in modern political speeches. It was the most attentive the convention hall at this abbreviated convention, and it was a speech that Republicans - and some Democrats, grudgingly - praised as he was delivering it.
– Paul Ryan made GOPers swoon with what most pundits say was the best speech of the convention so far. He used his regular-guy appeal to clearly set out a case against the Obama administration—but critics are challenging many of his facts. Ryan "came off young, which he is, but generally not so youthful as to seem off; he was emotional but not soft; he was tough on President Obama but not caustic," writes Maggie Haberman at Politico. His speech—ideological but "delivered in a non-threatening way—went a long way to making a convention that has been troubled a success," she writes. "Ryan has worn many hats on the campaign trail, from attack dog to budget expert," and his speech had elements of all those roles, writes Robert Costa at the National Review, likening Ryan's "conservative rallying cry" to those of Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, and Barry Goldwater. "Those men urged Americans to shrink government and empower individuals, and Ryan did just that," he writes. Ryan "played the part of the glib, ambitious student," casting the Romney-Ryan ticket as a "father-son pairing rather than a team of equals," writes Molly Ball at the Atlantic. But the speech was heavy on distorted facts, which seemed intentional, she writes. Ryan "is being positioned as the Republican ticket's gleeful, unabashed attack dog, someone willing to take it to the other side without regard for the sniffing of the poobahs: Sarah Palin in an ill-fitting suit." Ryan's start was a little rocky, but he recovered to eloquently deliver a speech packed with great lines, Chris Cillizza writes at the Washington Post. Ryan "made the case against the Obama administration effectively—'They have no answer to this simple reality: We need to stop spending money we don’t have'—and argued just as effectively for Romney."