When Bush addressed the nation last Thursday to persist in pushing his failed war agenda, he succeeded in pulling in a sizable portion of the television viewing audience. The only problem for him is that the response by Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed pulled in 7% more viewers.

Ordinarily, the opposition party response to a presidential address would be expected to lose viewers relative to the headliner from the White House. Just being competetive would be considered a victory of sorts. Consequently, these numbers demonstrate that there is significant curiosity in the TV viewing public as to the alternatives to administration talking points. The fact that the President can’t easily outperform an obscure senator that most of the country has never heard of, is proof that people are dissatisfied with his tired rhetoric.

It’s interesting to note that the greatest divergence in viewers in favor of the Democrats occurs on Fox News. So even Fox News viewers seem to be open to fresh perspectives and policies on ending the war. It’s too bad the folks at the Fox Entertainment Network didn’t think their audience deserved to hear Reed’s response. They were the only broadcast network to decline to air the Senator’s remarks. Still, more viewers in the cable news universe were exposed to an alternative perspective than to another of Bush’s robotic recitations of his standard pro-war litany.

This may also mean that the audience for the paid-for response by John Edwards might have drawn a larger than expected audience, validating his strategy and expanding the reach of the anti-war message. The other candidates, and the Democratic Party, should pay attention to these results and develop new tactics that make effective use of them.