Thanks, Michael, for inviting me to participate and comment on your book. Let me pick up on one thing you said in your post: I would argue that while words and ideas certainly matter in any presidential campaign oratory, I think there's a third factor at work here, beyond the words and the ideas behind a particular speech -- namely, the intersection of social currents and the larger context in which any speech is given.

Michael, in essence, makes this argument in his book -- providing perceptive analyses of the speeches he includes, describing the larger world of ideology, social movements, and political rivalries that help frame and make a speech memorable. Similarly, Garry Wills and Thurston Clarke wrote books about single speeches (Lincoln's Gettysburg address and JFK's inaugural, respectively), shedding new light on seminal addresses by examining the wider world in which the speeches were delivered.

In addition, I think it's important to examine the media's reaction and role in defining any speech as great and memorable. Especially now. While of course there's no single mass media today, I think the blogosophere and the traditional media retain enormous influence, at least in the short term, in defining oratory and shaping perceptions. Michael brought up Obama's speech on race; most in the media said it was among the greatest speeches on race relations in recent decades. This observation then became the conventional wisdom. I, too, happen to believe it was a terrific speech, but if Obama loses, will it, ten years out, be considered a landmark? Instead of marking a moment of racial unity and progress, will it be seen as a reflection of the progress America hasn't made? Of the ways in which America has fallen short?

In contrast, for the most part, the traditional media panned Hillary Clinton's non-concession address on the night of the final primaries and then gushed over her concession speech a few days later. And these perceptions have held sway ever since. But what if she somehow became president in 2012? Will this conventional wisdom hold under those changed circumstances? So I think it's as important to consider the media's (and opponents') reactions to campaign oratory as it is the words of the speech itself. Ideas matter, but the environment in which they're received is also crucial.

Let me, finally, point to two speeches included in Live from the Campaign Trail -- Hubert Humphrey's and George McGovern's dueling speeches over Vietnam. These speeches mattered not because the words soared and stirred but rather because their words reflected the larger divisions within the Democratic Party and American liberalism. We remember them because of the grass roots activism of millions of Americans and how this ferment shaped the broader debate about the Vietnam War.

While Humphrey used his speech to break with LBJ by endoring a bombing halt in Vietnam, he also jabbed his thumb in the eye of anti-war activists by refusing to "undertake a unilateral withdrawal." He articulated a strategy for achieving peace in Vietnam not through "weakness or withdrawal" but by using America's military strength and tough negotiations to end the war. Reading his speech today, it's neither eloquent nor particularly stirring ("Our country's military budget this year is $80 billion," he dryly noted). Yet, Michael included it, and it matters today, because it articulated the traditional anti-communist liberal position on that disastrous war. Its importance was framed and made possible by the larger debates about the war.

McGovern's 1972 "Come Home" America address tapped the growing fury of the antiwar left toward Richard Nixon's failed Vietnam strategy -- articulating the antiwar Democratic wing's position on Vietnam. Calling the bombing "senseless" while vowing a full withdrawal within 90 days of his inauguration, McGovern described Vietnam as a war "to prop up a corrupt military dictatorship abroad." While "come home America" was indeed a memorable sound bite, McGovern's speech resonated and lingered on because here was a major party presidential candidate, at long last, affirming the views of the embattled antiwar movement. His speech reflected a political reality and spoke to a political movement above all else.

At the same time, it remains memorable today because Republicans, from Nixon and Ronald Reagan to John McCain, have succeeded in exploiting McGovern's speech to tag liberals in general as "soft" on national security (remember Zell Miller's shameful screed at the 2004 Republican National Convention?) and as un-American (McCain's "Country First" tag-line reprises that theme). Conservative opponents defined McGovern's speech more than McGovern himself ever managed to do -- so, yes, McGovern's words and ideas mattered, but the larger context also mattered, and the conservative reaction was decisive in shaping perceptions and defining his oratory. I'm looking forward to hearing everybody's thoughts on these issues and the others raised in Michael's smart and timely book.