Pundits don't rate Obama's speech highly

Obama camp defends 'befuddlingly flat' convention speech

Barack Obama's campaign has repudiated pundits who found his big convention speech flat, boring and stripped of inspiration

The camp insists that the president achieved exactly what he set out to do.

Obama Friday found himself in the odd position of leaving a major political event unable to bask in acclaim for his stellar rhetoric.

Instead ex-president Bill Clinton and First Lady Michelle Obama stole hearts at the Democratic National Convention.

Gone is the urgent poetry of the young political pretender of 2004 and 2008. Obama, now a worn president weighed down by incumbency, has tempered his style to reflect times in which the hope he promised is in short supply.

Initial reaction to Obama's speech on Thursday night was that it underwhelmed and that the president missed a chance to cap a celebratory convention by twisting the knife into Republican Mitt Romney.

"Barack Obama is deeply over exposed and often boring," wrote columnist Peggy Noonan, who has praised some previous Obama speeches despite being a star of the conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.

Build-up
"His speech Thursday was weirdly anti-climactic. There's too much build-up, the crowd was tired, it all felt flat," said Noonan who used to pen speeches for the Great Communicator Ronald Reagan.

Tepid reviews combined with bad jobs numbers made for a bad news day for Obama, so a senior aide took unusually strolled to the press cabin on Air Force One to share the results of focus group data.

/more: [link to mg.co.za]

I think he believes his time is nearly up, and as voters realise it, we may see Obama do a fast fade into the election.
And it may be too late now to "inject" Hillary onto the ticket. Her chance may come in 2016

If Romney starts running ahead, it will really be time to start thinking about 3rd Party candidates, "to send a clear message."