McCain sets viewer record, beats Obama

Looks like those Styrofoam Greek columns are crumbling. According to the Los Angeles Times, John McCain's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention was viewed by more people than Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention a week ago.

The Times reports that 38.9 million viewers watched McCain's speech, compared to Obama's 38.4 million. McCain's number is the highest ever recorded for a convention speech, and toppled the record set by Obama just a week earlier.

In addition to John McCain's record-setting viewership numbers, Sarah Palin, the Republicans' VP candidate, set the record for a VP candidate's acceptance speech, with 37.2 million viewers. Palin's numbers were a whopping 55% higher than the numbers posted by her counterpart on the Democratic ticket, Joe Biden, who managed to pull in only 24 million.

It's fair to say that Governor Palin's nomination as Senator McCain's running mate has electrified the Republican base, and has stirred intense interest among women. According to Neilsen:

Coverage of day three of the GOP convention drew a large female audience (19.5 million) — 5.2 million more women than tuned in for day two of the Democratic convention, when Hillary Clinton addressed the delegates, and 6.9 million more women than watched Joe Biden accept the Democrats’ vice presidential nomination last Wednesday night.

Bloomberg reports that combined, the Republican ticket of McCain and Palin bested that of their Democratic counterparts, by a considerable margin:

Combined, McCain and Palin, who is Alaska's first-term governor, drew 76.2 million viewers, compared with the 62.4 million who tuned in to see Obama and running mate Joe Biden, the Democratic senator from Delaware. Biden drew 24 million viewers to his Aug. 27 speech.

Sarah Palin's entry into the race on the Republican ticket looks like a game-changer. She's smart, down to earth, and poised under pressure. The Republican base is clearly thrilled with her bona fide conservative credentials, and her presence on the ticket will draw a lot of conservative-leaning women Independents to the McCain-Palin camp. If McCain wins in November, he'll owe a big chunk of the credit to his running mate.