The Communication skills of the last 3 GOP presidents

[angus]

Reagan...Bush41...Bush43

We went from one of the best and clearest speakers in American History...to a very mediocre speaker...to the poorest speaker to ever hold the office of President

This must stop.

The ability to give a good speech is not everything, but the inability to speak effectively means you lack the ability to lead this nation in the modern era.

Ha!  Very interesting observation.  You may have found one of the more obvious lines of evidence of the devolution of the GOP, but I think that the party's slide is also manifested in other ways.  For example, take this picture from TIME magazine, 16 October 2006:



In case you can't quite make out the faces, it's Reagan, followed by a diminuitive Gingerich, then Lott, then Delay, and finally a little bitty Denny Hastert.  The story entitled "End of a Revolution" and it detailed how the exquisite political machinery that wins elections had begun to betray the Republican Party's platform.  Or at least its ideals (limited government, individual responsibility, and fiscal restraint.)  They make the case that one problem was that after the Republicans got into power, the system began to change them, not just the other way around.  But there were many other problems.  I know it's a little off your intended topic, but you may find the article worth a read, in your spare time.

Here's the cover from that same issue:

[angus]

Anyway, the real discussion is a good point, but I think jmfcst ignores the urgency of now for the Republican Party.  In the middle of a moderate identity crisis, more than ever the GOP needs someone that can articulate its "brand new" ideas to the electorate so that they can start, y'know, winning seats that aren't plagued by multiple sex scandals.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html?hpid=topnews

[angus]

Several people have commented on Obama's weakness regarding unscripted moments, but I'm just not getting this.  I don't find his unscripted moments at all sub-par.  On the one hand, I recognize that it's important to be able to speak, "HELLOOOOO CLEVELAND.  WHO'S HIGH RIGHT NOW?  LEMME HEAR YA YELL!  IN AAAAAA."  Been there.  Done that.  ("Well, okay, we were in Boston, not Cleveland.  And most of our shows were weddings, bar-mitzvahs, birthdays, and one foreign student welcoming orientation event, but, yeah, when I was in college and grad school I was a singer, songwriter, and general frontman in various incarnations of local bands, and as the leadman, I was generally instructed not to use vulgar language or references to illegal activities by the people who hired us.  Still, I understand that venue.  That vibe.  That need to be able to rock the world of a bunch of dazed and confuzed teeners and tweeners intent on damaging their eardrums and getting stoned and laid before the night was done.  And not necessarily in that order.)   But we're not electing the next Elvis.  Or the next pope.  Or the next drinking buddy.  Are we?  We're electing the next Herbert Hoover.  (That guy got a bad wrap, y'all know that, don't you?  Roosevelt wouldn't have been re-elected in '32 if he'd been first elected in '28.  I hope people basically understand that.)  Anyway, we're electing a president to preside in times of crises.  And I hope we have come a long way since 1928.  I suspect we have.  The literacy rate is much higer, and so is the general living standard, so there's no reason to to think that we can't appreciate a subdued, thoughtful style.  I appreciate it.  Then again, I'm not quite young enough to have been born with a video game control device in one hand and a mobile phone in the other, so I'm not sure if I can speak for Generation Wired.  Still, whomever I speak for--namely myself--I find Obama's unscripted moments enlightening, lucid, and informative.  Obama, like Hoover, isn't all that inspirational off-the-cuff, but then, the times aren't that inspirational either, are they?  Obama does, however, seem to have a decent grasp of the history of the office, and of the facts that confront him.  He's not an entertainer the way Bush was, or the way Clinton was.  But he's inspirational nevertheless.  Of course he's no Jay Leno, but then I wouldn't want to hire Jay Leno as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed services, or the next appointer of the federal judiciary.  So I don't hold it against him that he doesn't constantly entertain and enthrall me.