As Dog Gone pointed out to you when you made that same statement an hour ago on another similar thread, the post-Convention bumps prove otherwise. Mushy middlers pay attention to the conventions and become attracted to candidates as a result.
Dog Gone is right IMHO -- over the years the mushy middle has chosen their candidates from conventions and why you see the bumps. Sometimes the mushy middle changes and likes the 2nd convention better then the first.
Thus, we have Rudy (great speaker) and Arnold (very popular) speaking.
If the base isn't already fired up, especially this time, a convention is not going to help. Didn't help me get fired up with Dole! The base is meant to get fired up by VP Cheney and Pres Bush not other speakers as they give their speeches and then leave the convention on a campaign swing. The last night is for the base IMHO!
It was only afterwards that the media (and liberal Republicans) began their campaign to position the speech as a hate-filled diatribe.
And, we see that even today, the media won the war to rewrite the speech after the fact, to the point where even Republicans buy into the dishonest and factually incorrect spin that was applied after the fact.
And I don't even like Buchanan! But, this almost Soviet rewriting of history really bothers me.