The Communication skills of the last 3 GOP presidents

[Lunar]

I'm not sure, if your speaking skills indicate you're just a "regular guy" like GWB's was obviously attempting to do, then it appeals to the anti-intellectualism present in many parts of the electorate - especially if you're running against professorial-speakers like Kerry and Gore.  It's better to be a folksy guy that you want to have a non-alcoholic beer with than a Gore-lite - you have to find your speaking niche.

and I laughed at the desperate straw-grabbing to attempt to label Obama as a bad speaker in this thread.  Obama's problem with speaking off-the-cuff is that he has to force himself to be less professorial than he knows the electorate wants, to go over his words in his head before he speaks them.  But as far as his actual speech talent - the guy actually wrote a fair number of his key speeches and delivered them with more stunning ability than any president in history, with the runner ups being Reagan and the runner-up candidate being Mr. Cross of Thorns William.

Obama is clearly where he is today (president-elect) because of his rhetorical talent, so dissing his speaking skills is particularly hilarious and needy.  Whatever he was doing sure seemed to work!  McCain was better at those [real] town-halls than Obama would have been, without a doubt.

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.