Rep. Paul Ryan drew just slightly more than 20 million viewers for his speech last night at the GOP convention, significantly less than the 37.2 million that Sarah Palin attracted four years ago, Businessweek reports.

Democrats have a presence at the GOP festivities in Tampa, the New York Times reports, “a 30-person pop-up shop in a storefront one block beyond the security perimeter of the Tampa Bay Times Forum, where the Republican National Convention is being held, and dedicated to pushing back against the hurricane-strength messaging of the Republicans.”

Said Obama adviser Stephanie Cutter: “There are now 70 days left until the election, and we’re not going to cede any one of them.”

The Tea Party — which energized and even seemed to overtake the Republican Party in 2010 — has been virtually invisible at this Republican National Convention, BuzzFeed reports.

“Not a single one of the 38 speakers during the convention’s key prime time hours has even mentioned the phrase, according to an examination of their transcripts — a sign both of Romney’s own distance from the movement and that polls have suggested that voters view the movement negatively.”

That was quick: Crossroads Generation is out with a new ad featuring the imagery of the faded Obama poster mentioned in Paul Ryan’s GOP convention speech last night.

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BuzzFeed compiles clips of the worst jokes from speakers at the Republican National Convention.

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Romney adviser Russ Schriefer wasn’t very revealing to Politico when asked about tonight’s convention speaker that has not yet been announced: “If there was a mystery speaker, then it wouldn’t be a mystery anymore.”

Update: Multiple media organizations report the mystery speaker will be actor Clint Eastwood.

A new Public Policy Polling survey in Missouri finds Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) leading embattled challenger Todd Akin (R) by just one point, 45% to 44%.

Key findings: 53% of voters say that they accept Akin’s apology for his comments last week to 40% who do not.

Meanwhile, a Wenzel Strategies survey done for the Family Research Council finds Akin leading 45% to 42%.

Jonathan Cohn: “Paul Ryan’s speech on Wednesday night played well with GOP loyalists in Tampa, with television viewers across the country, and may eventually resonate with the swing voters who will decide the election. But what Ryan actually said last night is objectionable because he was so brazenly willing to twist the truth. At least five times, Ryan misrepresented the facts. And while none of the statements were new, the context was. It’s one thing to hear them on a thirty-second television spot or even in a stump speech before a small crowd. It’s something else entirely to hear them in a prime time address, as a vice presidential nominee accepting his party’s nomination and speaking to the entire country.”

Ezra Klein: “Ryan’s claims weren’t even arguably true. You simply can’t say the president hasn’t released a deficit reduction plan. The plan is right here. You simply can’t say the president broke his promise to keep your GM plant open. The decision to close the plant was made before he entered office — and, by the way, the guy at the top of your ticket opposed the auto bailout. You simply can’t argue that the Affordable Care Act was a government takeover of the health-care system. My doctor still works for Kaiser Permanente, a private company that the government does not own. You simply can’t say that Obama, who was willing to follow historical precedent and sign a clean debt ceiling increase, caused the S&P downgrade, when S&P clearly said it was due to congressional gridlock and even wrote that it was partly due to the GOP’s dogmatic position on taxes.”

First Read: “We want to make a final point about Ryan’s acceptance speech, and it’s the same one we made yesterday: Don’t get carried away by a strong VP speech; it typically doesn’t have a long shelf life. Think Ferraro in ’84, Bentsen in ’88, Kemp in ’96, Lieberman in ’00, and Edwards in ’04. The exception, of course, is Sarah Palin in ’08. But she isn’t the rule.”

“The demographics race we’re losing badly. We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”

— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by the Washington Post, on the Republican party’s challenge.

First Read: “If tonight’s speech is to be successful, Romney has to meet four objectives. One, he has to better introduce himself to the American public; it remains striking that after running for president for much of the past five years, voters still don’t have more than a two-dimensional understanding of the soon-to-be nominee. Two, he needs to convince the public that, while he looks the part, he’s the man Americans are comfortable seeing on their TVs for the next four years. Three, he has to try to close the empathy gap; our most recent NBC/WSJ poll found President Obama holding a 22-point advantage on who cares more about average people. And four, he needs to put some meat on the policy bone to make the case how his plans could actually work better than Obama’s — and how they are different from the past Republican administration. If four hours are going to decide this presidential election, the first hour comes tonight.”

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush said he would open his speech to the Republican National Convention tonight “with a defense of his brother George because President Obama keeps running him down,” Politico reports.

Said Bush: “I just feel compelled to do this because almost every day I hear the current incumbent feeling compelled to push down the past to make himself look better. When I was growing up, we were spanked when that happened.”

“College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.”

— Rep. Paul Ryan, during his convention speech last night.