You could tell it from the look in their eyes after John Kerry’s convention speech the other day. That’s the great thing about TV – people can spew the same old talking points, but they can’t disguise the emotion written on their faces. Republicans are worried.

Ed Gillespie, the normally unflappable GOP party chairman, looked sick when CNN cut to him moments after Kerry finished. Other Republican surrogates displayed the same pale dread. To be sure, they’ve regrouped. But that look didn’t lie: They now know Kerry is a game-day player who can deliver in the clutch.

If you’re a Democrat, that’s the good news. The bad news is the mystery of the missing “bump.” Some sophisticates say Kerry’s limp poll numbers only mean that so many voters have made up their minds that there are few left to move. Others blame the networks for not covering more than an hour of the show each night (and shame on them).

Maybe. But whatever the cause, the momentum and excitement Democrats plainly felt coming out of Boston hasn’t proved contagious.

Which raises the question: What’s the Republican strategy as their own convention looms? It’s hard to believe they can go after Kerry as unable to meet the credibility threshold on national security, when the man is constantly surrounded by a phalanx of veterans whose lives he saved, and boasts a record of valor that he’d be happy to contrast with Bush’s own during the debates.

Nor is the “don’t switch leaders in the midst of war” argument likely to persuade voters, given that the Iraqi aftermath has been so botched, and when the main “war” – on terror – will be unending. A hundred years’ war might tax even the Bush dynasty’s ability to serve up plausible presidents in successive two-term chunks. And if we’re destined to change horses often enough in any event, swing voters may conclude there’s no reason not to start now.

The White House will stop Kerry from outflanking Bush to the right by matching whatever Kerry does on intelligence or Sept. 11 reforms. They’ll use their power to shape the media agenda by instilling enough terror-related fear as seems consistent with looking “apolitical” on such life-and-death matters. They’ll likely roll out new pledges of faux “compassion” for a second Bush term in an effort to blur the domestic debate in areas like the uninsured.

But the GOP’s mother lode remains Kerry’s 18-year record of thousands of Senate votes – and the way they can be cherry-picked in 30-second ads to caricature the candidate.

This essentially comes down to saying, “Yes, you saw John Kerry at the convention, and he seemed strong, maybe even like your kind of guy. But it was all a hoax! What are you going to believe – Kerry’s voting record (as distorted by us, heh-heh), or your lyin’ eyes?”

The depressing preview is a new Bush ad the campaign calls “Family Priorities.”

Cue a slow, melancholy piano riff under wholesome images of kids pouring milk and boarding school buses.

“When it comes to issues that affect our families,” the female narrator intones, “are John Kerry’s priorities the same as yours?

“Kerry voted against parental notification for teenage abortions… Kerry even voted to allow schools to hand out the morning-after pill without parents’ knowledge… He voted to take control away from parents by taking away their right to know …

“John Kerry has his priorities … The question is, are they yours?”

Who knew? Isn’t it now obvious that the animating obsession in John Kerry’s public life has been to make the world safe for underage girls to have secret abortions? And isn’t it just like a sneaky liberal to mask this debauched agenda behind his Potemkin $800 billion health care plan and $200 billion education trust fund? Did someone say Manchurian Candidate?

My wife says that if George Bush wins, it will mean there really are “two Americas,” but not the kind John Edwards talks about. Her “Two Americas” are (1) people who can be swayed by rubbish like this into voting for Bush even against their economic self-interest, and (2) people who can’t. Sounds about right to me.

Matthew Miller is a syndicated columnist and author.