Ann Romney, Christie Lift Republican Spirits

Last night was a good night to be a Republican, with rousing speeches from Ann Romney and Chris Christie lifting spirits at the convention, say pundits—but it's not clear how much the speeches will lift the Romney campaign.

• Ann Romney's moving, deeply personal speech lingered even after Christie spoke, although she faced an "impossible task," writes Molly Ball at the Atlantic. "She couldn't, in a single speech, fix her husband's personality deficits, much less his glaring deficit with the female vote. But she did, for the moment, brighten an otherwise a dour and out-of-sorts convention."

• Ann gave a "wonderful speech," and her "authentic adoration" of Mitt could do a lot for the candidate with voters who have yet to make their mind up about him—but only if they watched the speech instead of hearing about it second-hand, writes John Dickerson at Slate. "Romney still has to break through the trust barrier himself," he writes.
• Ann's speech was "fine," but Chris Christie's "big," "hopeful," keynote speech was the real event, writes Peggy Noonan at the Wall Street Journal. "It said the American people can turn their country around, that they actually want candidates who speak the truth, that they will follow difficult prescriptions if they seem grounded in reality," she writes. Christie "played the common man," but "he was high minded, and he beautifully skewered the hypocrites and reactionaries in the teachers' unions," she writes.
• Christie surprised many attendees by spending a lot more time talking about his vision for the party's future than about Romney or Obama, writes Maggie Haberman at Politico. It was a reminder that the New Jersey governor "is still seen as one of the future leaders of a party that believes this is a winnable election, but has hoped for Romney to wage a different, more aggressive campaign," she writes.

(More Ann Romney stories.)