This morning on XM’s POTUS08, I heard Glenn Kessler of Mediacurves discussing their latest study of voters’ reaction to Obama’s speech on retaining and reforming President Bush’s program for faith-based initiatives.

Support for federal funding for faith-based initiatives increased by about 10 percent among Democrats and Independents after watching excerpts of the speech. There was no change among Republicans, although they were the group most supportive of the idea before watching Obama. But most interestingly, Kessler said, was that the speech left no change in voters’ opinions of the Democratic candidate – both approval and personal favorability rating came in exactly the same afterwards as it had before the speech. He said usually watching a candidate bumps up those ratings at least a few points. So somehow Obama managed to persuade a segment of those watching to agree with his position, while having no impact on what they think of him.

Beyond that, the group asks voters to record all of their emotions, positive and negative, they feel while watching a candidate. The most common emotion/response to watching Obama in this speech? “Skepticism.” And it came from about 30 percent of Democrats.