It seems that oratory is almost completely a lost art. Clinton was an entertaining and charismatic public speaker, but he wasn't eloquent in the way that a John F. Kennedy or FDR was. And Bush's speeches are kind of a sad shadow of a great FDR or JFK speech (and his delivery of the quasi-soaring words is generally not very good - certainly not up to snuff with actual eloquent politicians)

I wonder if the fact that politicians no longer write their own speeches has a lot to do with this. The great politicians of the 19th century all generally wrote their own speeches (there's some exceptions - Secretary of State Adams wrote the Monroe Doctrine speech, rather than Monroe himself).

There is also, I suspect, a lot less teaching of rhetoric than there once was. Kids used to be forced to memorize Shakespearean soliloquies and famous historical speeches and stuff, and were taught about rhetorical arts and the like. This kind of thing seems to be completely gone.

But that's what they said about JFK in 1960. And unlike Dan Quayle, Obama compares pretty favorably to JFK in terms of intangibles, "does he have enough Elvis", etc.

It's easy to deplore the role that charisma plays in presidential elections. But true charisma basically gets you 10 million or so votes pretty much for free (i.e., almost without regard to the experience or policy positions of the candidate), so it's somewhat hard for a party to leave that kind of electoral wealth on the table.

The poof from which politicians is selected is not the "good public speaker" pool, but it is the "white millionaire male" pool. And the skills to get you to become a millionaire is not public speaking.

The barrier of entry to become a politician here (the enormous cost of a campaign) simply filters out good public speakers (and most policy wonks).

It's spelled Barack!

"But why is this such a rare quality? It's not easy to become a governor or a US Senator, after all, and public speaking is a big part of the politician's job all the way down. Obviously, giving speeches is hard to do. But is it really that hard? Are the available training methods really that rudimentary?"

Why can't every professional basketball player be as spectacular as Dwyane Wade? Are the available training methods really that rudimentary?

Of course, there is a 'raw talent' factor that folks like Clinton, Edwards, and Obama have that folks like Dean, Gore, and Kerry don't.

While speaking styles can be trained, basic charisma and basic leading man performance aptitude can't. Some folks are naturals, and some folks aren't.

William Macy is a highly trained and talented actor, but he's never going to be able to pull off Brad Pitt or George Clooney type roles.

The GOP is miles above the Dems in recognizing the basic facts surrounding these performance issues. That's why they have a much stronger history of recruiting actors to be candidates than we do. Grooming raw talent is a far better solution than trying to improve lousy talent.

Actually, Clinton was a lousy speaker too. Don't confuse articulation (Clinton was articulate while George W. Bush, for instance, isn't) with persuasion or captivation. Clinton was also in love with his own voice and talked way, way too long.

Pains me to say it, but the last President who could really deliver inspiring rhetoric was Reagan.

Our president is our leader.  Leadership entails persuading those being led to follow you.  And, that requires an ability to speak persuasively.  So, please, let's not undervalue speaking ability just because our favorite candidate is a lousy public speaker.

Of course, leadership isn't involved in winning the presidency, nor is public speaking.  That may seem odd, but the winners get that way through advertising campaigns, advocacy by the news media, and campaign tricks, all of which are proportional to the amount of money the candidate can spend.

The Democratic Candidate for Governor of California, Phil Angelides, is a compelling public speaker in person, but does not show well on TV.  He, therefore, starts the race for the governorship with a handicap, and is doubly handicapped by having the newsmedia opposing him and the big campaign donors largely supporting his opponent, old what's his name.  But, when he gets elected, he will be a very good governor because of his ability to persuade people to follow his lead.

Barack Obama is unique in that he is an excellent public speaker, and he comes across very well on TV.  Once he establishes his political philosophy, and accomplishes something in the US Senate, he will be an outstanding candidate for the presidency.  Unfortunately, that isn't likely to happenn before 2008.

Hoppy in Sacramento

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Obama and every other contender can thank GWB for lowering the qualifications for the Presidency. The only thing he's got going against him is thin experience, or better "would have had going against him".

The unintended consequence of the worst President ever

Can you substantiate that?

I don't know about Gore, but from a biography of Kerry he was very popular in college. In high school he was a liberal middle-class kid in a conservative upper-class prep-school, so he wasn't the most popular kid, but so what?

This question connects to one of my pet ideas. I've been saying for awhile that the academic influence on the Democratic party has had a big down side. One is the association of Democrats with cultural elitism -- and Democratic elitism is real, even though Republican populism is fake.

A second problem is the perceived Democratic lack of decisiveness and macho. On the whole, the academic world does not reward take-charge guys who get ahead of the consensus. Every once in awhile it does, but the best career plan is to be collegial, keep your head down, make your moves carefully, and avoid offending anyone. And intellectually, talking things to death is encouraged: "Let's look at that a little more closely....", "I'm not sure it's quite as simple as that....", "On the other hand....", etc.

Lack of eloquence is a third problem. In the academic world stirring, emotive language is virtually forbidden.

"Academic" here really has a broader context than it normally has -- I really mean to include most credentialized people working in regulated profession and most administrative and bureaucratic types who ser their job as keeping things on an even keel (as opposed to entrepreneurship and finding new directions).

Recently someone working with Democrats went so far as to identify class with higher education, independently of income. Many very prosperous business people and people in the trades have a weak or nonexistent college background, and I think that these make up many of the "blue-collar Republicans" we hear about. They're not poor, just non-college.

This is also a specifically American phenomenon. Is Tony Blair a great speaker? Is the average English pol? No, but they are at least mostly competent; if you watch Question Time on CSPAN, you can see that most Brit pols can at least express themselves coherently in their own language. Not so most American pols - nor many American people. Our language is debased - we just don't care about it that much. Simple as that.

I can't believe no one is willing to consider even for a minute that at least part of the reason we think Kerry and especially Gore are so bad in public is because the Kool Kidz kept telling us they were (are) terrible -- am I the only one who has internalized Bob Somerby in lieu of Chris Mathews (and Frank Rich, and Maureen Dowd, and Cokie Roberts . . . )?

America needs hope. People want a New America, one that is a differnt path than the leadership of the last 6 years or last two decades for that matter. People want vision, unity, peace, prosperity, and courage. They want someone that represnts those principles. Obama represents those values and so does John Edwards. Edwards and Obama are down right the most charasmatic and best politicians on both sides of the aisles. I want these values too. I think a Edwards/Obama ticket would be a strong ticket to beat because it represents change. It represents hope. I pray that us Democrats wake up and look to the leadership of Edwards and Obama to move this country to new America.

Edwards/Obama 2008

Someone asked what Barack Obama has actually done on his job to justify anyone's admiration. I understand he was instrumental in getting a law passed in Illinois that requires that confessions be videotaped in capital cases. That's good enough for me.