Do Speeches Work?

Nate Silver looks at the polls to see whether Obama's speech had any measurable impact. Rasmussen gave Obama a seven-point bump, The Washington Post-ABC poll saw a one point improvement, and CBS saw Obama's approval ratings jump 12 points. Nate averages these out for a 6.7 percent improvement, though we'll see if it lasts. Historically, these things don't. That said, the polls measure public opinion. The speech's impact on elite opinion is rather different. My sense from reporting in the past week is that it really did invigorate the players on the Democratic side, if only by providing a clean break with the dispiriting hysteria of August. The speech created space for the legislative process to restart, which was pretty much what it needed.