Ten winners and ten losers at the Republican convention

The speeches are over. The road blocks are dismantled. The delegates are heading out of town. As the debris of the week that was is swept away, let’s savor some of the high points and low points of the Republican National Convention.

Condi Rice (AP photo)

Here are ten winners and losers from the Tampa convention:

WINNERS

Condi Rice
The biggest hit at the Republican convention was a non-politician who has never run for office. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a prime-time speech that appealed to both the hearts and the minds of the audience. Her discussion of growing up under Jim Crow apartheid in Birmingham, Ala., was one of the most moving moments of the week.

Marco Rubio
The best political speech of the week was delivered by the 41-year-old freshman senator from Florida. He showed an ability to connect personally with voters and to deliver tough partisan messages with grace and wit. Best line: Talking about how his father, working as a bartender, “stood in the back of the room all those years so one day I could stand at a podium in the front of the room.” The American Dream. Bravo!

Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz (AP photo)

The 41-year-old Texas Senate candidate made an impressive debut on the national political stage. His Tuesday night speech, delivered without notes or a TelePrompter, was a passionate ode to freedom, free enterprise and constitutionalism. Nobody did it better.

Ann Romney
The candidate’s wife delivered a moving tribute to her husband. Her stories about their courtship, their parents and their children went a long way toward humanizing the nominee. She also delivered the speech with the polish of a seasoned political pro.

The Romney Family
The mini-documentary on the Romney family, aired just before the bizarre Clint Eastwood interlude, made the large clan seem like an All-American Family, just like yours except bigger and better-looking. It was political propaganda at its best. And we mean that in a positive way.

Jeb Bush
The only member of the Bush political dynasty to take to the stage in Tampa was Florida’s popular former governor (and a potential 2016 candidate if Romney fails to topple President Obama this year). Without rhetorical flourishes or one-line attacks, Jeb made a compelling case for the diversity of the new generation of Republicans. A touch of class.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers (AP photo)

Cathy McMorris Rodgers
The Washington state congresswoman was the face of congressional Republicans at the convention. And what a face. She was smart and tough, but she didn’t look scary or extreme. There was a reason that she was on the national TV screens at key moments in the proceedings — and not House Speaker John Boehner or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Susana Martinez
Like Ronald Reagan, New Mexico’s governor explained in concise, compelling thoughts why she left the Democratic Party and became a Republican. The former prosecutor, who fought public corruption and violence against children, showed that she’s definitely ready for prime time and a bigger role in the Republican Party’s future.

Led Zeppelin
Paul Ryan probably juiced CD (and iTunes) sales of this retro band. Free advertising. National TV. Can’t beat it.

Rick Perry
The Texas governor didn’t speak at the convention, but he worked tirelessly to reconnect with the Texas conservative grassroots activists who spent the week in Tampa, and he was a ubiquitous presence on Fox News and conservative radio row. Anyone who thinks that Rick Perry is a lame duck just yet is … well, lame.

The chair and I. (AP photo)

LOSERS

Clint Eastwood
Dirty Harry, as one wag put it, turned into your crazy Uncle Harry. The octogenarian actor, once the archetype of American male toughness, seemed like a disheveled, harried has-been. His locker-room language made the Romney family cringe and his disjointed dialogue with an empty chair overshadowed the terrific documentary that proceeded his appearance and the magnificent oration of Marco Rubio that followed it. Bad act. Bad judgment. As Al Gore once said, “It’s time for him to go.”

Rick Santorum
In case we had forgotten, Rick Santorum reminded us in Tampa why he lost the Republican presidential nomination. His speech was rambling and off-key. His family’s story of living the American Dream was moving when we heard it a year ago. But he’s still telling the same old story. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Susana Martinez were vastly superior at molding their own American stories into political narratives that benefit the Republican Party.

Comedy night with Tim Pawlenty (AP photo)

Tim Pawlenty
The former Minnesota governor told the worst jokes of the convention. He bombed with a rapid-fire string of unfunny one-liners. “The president takes more vacations than that guy on the Bizarre Foods show.” Ugh. “I’ve come to realize that Barack Obama is the tattoo president. Like a big tattoo, it seemed cool when you were young.” Pawlenty wouldn’t win an eighth grade comedy night. And to think this man thought he was presidential material.

Rob Portman
There was a reason the Ohio senator wasn’t picked as Mitt Romney’s running mate. Can you say “boooooring.” He’s a budget expert — after all, he was George W. Bush’s White House budget director. But he was stiff and ineffective on stage.

Scott Walker
Wisconsin’s governor came into the convention a symbol of conservative activism and survival against an onslaught from organized labor. He left the convention a symbol — but not a leader. His speech was flat and poorly delivered. He was far less effective than his fellow Wisconsin elected official, Paul Ryan.

Chris Christie (AP photo)

Chris Christie
Barack Obama’s 2004 Democratic keynote speech rocketed him to national stardom. Three days after the New Jersey governor delivered the 2012 Republican keynote speech, almost nobody can remember a thing he said. He was overshadowed Tuesday night by Ann Romney’s classy performance.

Newt Gingrich
The former presidential candidate and his wife Calista were relegated to a minor role at Mitt Romney’s convention. They introduced a tribute to Ronald Reagan. It was cosmic justice, because, during the campaign, Team Romney attacked Gingrich for claiming closer ties to the Gipper than he actually had.

Mitch McConnell
The invisible man of the Republican convention. In Washington, Mitch McConnell is one of the most powerful and visible Republicans on Capitol Hill. In Tampa, he had a few bit parts but wasn’t central to the narrative. The party was trying to emphasize youth and diversity. And the aging senator from Kentucky didn’t fit the script.

Pam Bondi and Sam Olens (AP photo)

Pam Bondi and Sam Olen
The attorneys general from Florida and Georgia gave a dense, convoluted presentation about the failings of the Obama health-care law. It seemed like a bad law school class.They didn’t connect with voters on a gut level. And they didn’t make the case against the controversial law. Just tired talking points.

Todd Akin
Gone but not forgotten, the Missouri congressman whose comments about “legitimate rape” lit a political firestorm became a symbol in Tampa of what the Republican Party doesn’t want America to think it is. Top party leaders, including Mitt Romney, have demanded that he withdraw from the Missouri Senate race against Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill. But a defiant Akin, backed up by prominent anti-abortion groups, isn’t budging. Wrong optics.

Richard Dunham