Actually, I should have been making these notes as last night’s GOP speakers were doing their thing, but I was too busy having fun with my Tweeps on Twitter (fine me at @talkmaster).

In general:

ANN ROMNEY.  Started out a little nervous – but who wouldn’t be?  She knew and the people in that room knew what was riding on her comments.  This wasn’t just a pro-forma appearance by the candidate’s wife, this was a speech that was so potentially important that the future of our Republic could depend on it.

Oh!  I’m sorry!  Does that sound a little over-the-top?  Consider this:  This election may be razor close.  The Democrats certainly know this, and they’re mining groups where the veins of undecided voters are clearly visible.  That would include women.  Ann Romney’s purpose wasn’t to convince men that her husband was the man to save this Republic – and our freedoms – from Obama.  She was there to talk to the women.  Now I am uniquely unqualified to determine just how well she did on that point.  The tale will be told, in the short term, in polling of undecided women out there.  Once she settled in – and that didn’t take long – I thought she did very well.  You definitely got the idea that she was proud of her country before her husband got the GOP nomination --- even before she met her husband!  How great is that?

Would anyone care to weigh in on the comments made by Fox News Channel’s Juan Williams last night?  Wasn’t that a wonderful moment when he referred to Ann Romney as a “corporate wife?”  You know --- a woman who is taken care of by her man and, therefore, has no idea what it is like to struggle as a single mother or poor woman in America?

CHRIS CHRISTIE.  I’m guessing --- or I get the impression from reading reviews this morning -- I liked the New Jersey Governor’s keynote address more than most.  I thought it was well written and beautifully delivered.  I would feel a lot more confident about our chances of defeating Obama if Mitt Romney were able to deliver a speech with that passion and personality.  I particularly liked two lines in Christie’s speech.  One … we need leaders who want to DO something more than they want to BE something; and the other about the most dangerous organized group of people in this country (other than the Democrat Party), the teacher’s unions.  Christie said “They care about teacher’s unions.  We care about teachers”  Well put.  One of the most important aspects of a Republican victor in November would be the possibility of knocking down the teacher’s unions a notch or two.

Christie brought up another point.  It is more important that a politician – our leader- be respected than loved.  We can’t hide from the fact that Obama is perceived as more likeable than Romney.  History is full of likeable despots who destroyed societies and aloof leaders who saved them.  Hopefully that part of Christie’s message got through to a few people – especially younger people who are more prone to act on someone’s personality rather than their motives or achievements.

In the end Christie said that “Real leaders don’t follow polls.  Real leaders change polls.”  Well --- first of all, remember that Obama is a ruler, not a leader.  But Christie is right.  The best ever at reading polls and racing ahead to be there when the public arrived was Bill Clinton.  Obama is not far behind.  The best at understanding that polls showed people heading in the wrong direction, and then getting out there to turn them to a safer path -- a path to freedom -- was Ronald Reagan.  Can Romney do that?  Not known.  Will Obama?  Oh HELL no.

NIKKI HALEY  She’s the Republican Governor of South Carolina, and I loved the way she handed it to Obama and his National Labor Relations Board.  She talked about the first Boeing Dreamliner lifting off of that runway near Charleston as 6000 NON-UNION Boeing employees stood in pride and applauded as that airplane that they built took off.  It would be nice if someone would inform Governor Haley that there is not, as she claimed, a right to vote in a presidential election.  We are not going to make any progress in getting unqualified voters off the rolls if we keep insisting that such a right exists, when it most certainly does not.

MIA LOVE  Mia is running for Congress in Utah.  If she wins, and that seems probable, she will be the first black Republican woman in the Congress of the United States.  Sorry … I didn’t see her speech.  I do note, though, that after she was finished prog immediately started editing her bio on Wikipedia to call her a whore --- and that was the nicest comment.  Mia Love … another runaway slave from the Democrat plantation.  She’ll handle that just fine.