Pete suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value events

Click here for exclusive articles, offers, tasting notes and discussion

Obama's convention speech draws record TV audience

Saturday, 30th August 2008

It says something about what a shock pick Sarah Palin was that less than 24 hours after Barack Obama’s historic acceptance speech we are not talking about it. But it is worth noting that his speech last night was watched by 38 million Americans, that’s a record for a convention address. As I’ve said before, this focus on Obama is a double-edged sword for him. But his decision to go after McCain so hard in the speech did go some way to prodding voters to think of the election not as a referendum on Obama but as a choice between him and McCain. However, it does mean that Democrats are going to find it hard to complain about the emphasis on Obama at the Republican convention.

PS One intriguing question about Palin is whether she is going to be used as an attack dog or not. This morning she showed that she can do one part of the running mate’s job, selling McCain well but we have yet to see her have a crack at the other bits of it.