The speech was horrid. Even Newspapers that support Kerry, like the New York Times and Washington Post panned his speech.
It may have been the single worst nomination acceptance speech I have ever seen.

As I saw it, Kerry had 4 things that he needed to accomplish in his speech, in descending order of importance;

1) Demonstrate that he had iron clad, concrete plans to combat terrorism
and strengthen the economy that is superior to Bush.

2) Display a unifying, [i:n2pl8pdh][b:n2pl8pdh]positive[/b:n2pl8pdh][/i:n2pl8pdh] message for the country- a [/i]theme[i:n2pl8pdh]
of his vision including;
a) a flowery theme (a place called hope,
a new tone, a thousand points of light)
b) specific initiatives to accomplish it.

3) Demonstrate that, despite his long history of cutting the military, that
he has the will and the stomach to fight and win the war on terror rather
than cave to the doves in his own party.

4) Dispel the perception that he is a flip flopping political opportunist.

In my opinion, he failed miserbly. He came off looking like a joke and actualy reinforced the very images he sought to dispel.
His salute and declaration; “I’m John Kerry, reporting for duty” was amatuerish and embarrasing.

Is Kerry done? I think so.
If he still does win, it will be despite, and not because of, last night’s speech[/i:n2pl8pdh]