The president addressed the gathering of delegates and supporters last night from a circular stage bearing the presidential seal. And as Bush made his entrance, a podium emerged from the floor in front of him.

Convention organizers hoped to create a more intimate setting for the president’s address. Still, nine steps and two barriers separated Bush from the crowd.

Harvard students contacted immediately following the president’s speech reacted along party lines.

Matthew P. Downer ’07, who spent the summer as an assistant in the convention’s Office of External Relations and Program Committee, called Bush’s speech a “grand slam.”

“He made a compelling case for another four years,” said Downer, who watched the speech from the convention’s plush red floor next to the Ohio delegation.

And another Harvard Republican Club member and convention volunteer, Bryce E. Caswell ’07, said she appreciated the president’s sense of humor. In one lighthearted moment, Bush acknowledged his English has not always been up to par.

“I knew I had a problem when Arnold Schwarzenegger started [correcting] it,” Bush said.

But Andy J. Frank ’05, president of the Harvard College Democrats, remained unimpressed with the rhetoric of the Bush campaign.

“We’ve heard the same things that he said today about a billion times, but it doesn’t make it true,” Frank said by telephone after watching the speech from his home in Illinois.

The College Democrats e-mailed a bulletin to members early this morning saying the president’s speech had capped “the most hateful, venomous, and misleading convention in history.”

And in a sign of the heated opposition to Bush’s first term in office, opponents of the president managed to infiltrate and disrupt the convention for the fourth night in a row. One woman, displaying a sign which read “Bush lies,” was dragged away after she began shouting during the president’s speech. A second protester was escorted out of the building minutes later, but not before forcing the president to pause his address briefly as delegates chanted “Four more years” to drown out the heckler.

Security remained tight during the final night of the convention, but the crowd’s nerves were rattled when, during the traditional balloon drop, streamers were unfurled with a bang, startling many in the arena.

--Staff writer Zachary M. Seward can be reached at seward@fas.harvard.edu.

--Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.