When I said to one of my McCain guys that my readers liked the senator’s speech more than I did, he said, “well, your readers are smarter than you are.”

The press accounts in the Post are gloomier, depicting a candidate regularly beseiged by boos. (I can’t help but wonder if left-of-center commentators want to see a Republican candidate incapable of winning over a skeptical room, rather than a roomful of conservatives recognizing all the times McCain fought on their side.) I’d put my faith in Stanley Kurtz’s accounts in the Corner.

The cheery voices, who came mostly immediately afterwards:

I loved the speech. I thought it was an out of the ballpark home run. He did what he needed to do and then some. Hairs on the back of my neck were standing up when he was talking about the differences between him and democrats – and what he would do to support conservative values.
Keep in mind, I’m a Fredhead and I want to see what McCain will do for a veep before going “all in.”
That said, McCain nailed it today.

And:

A+, for its purposes–which include selling himself nationally for November. To Americans who don’t pay much attention to politics(which includes about 98% of voters), he comes across as very, very sincere. You can’t buy that, and you can’t fake it(see Hillary).

And finally,

In the words of Jonah Goldberg .. “Me Likey!”

And a sample of the grumpier ones, who came later:

The reason your readers seem to be loving the CPAC McCain speech, I think, is that many of us have given up and are tuning out for a while. Those still paying attention are likely to be willing to support any GOP speech, whatever. He’s terrible.

By the way, I think I’ve figured out why I thought it was only ”pretty good” and so many readers were wowed – I’ve been doing little else but watch political speeches for the past year, and thus I’ve seen McCain win over a skeptical young crowd at the MySpace event, Brownback bathe in admiration from the crowd at FRC, Huckabee hit every emotional note perfectly at the NRA candidate forum. Even the most hardcore political junkies probably have something better to do with their time.