John McCain can be a great speaker, especially when he is a little bit angry and speaking without notes. The problem is that he consistently (at least 50% of the time) is boring, mundane and flat, due to poor reading of a speech. Barack Obama is occasionally flat and has too many “uhs” and “ums” (especially during a media interview), but Obama is consistently (over 80% of the time) a great speaker. He’s smooth, fluid, emotional, and compelling.

My prediction: This spells doom for McCain. Since the modern TV era (1952), the general election candidate who is the better speaker has always won the presidency. (I grant you 2000 and 2004 can be debated due to the poor speaking skills of Bush versus the irritating speaking styles of Gore and Kerry).

But 2008 is a very clear-cut contest between someone who is a great speaker most of the time (Obama) and someone who is a poor-to-middling speaker most of the time (McCain). I’m predicting a clear-cut Obama based purely on his oratorical talents.

Once in every election there is a sound bite where something dramatic occurs that supposedly turns the election. Usually, the news media get this wrong. Here is the clip where Senator Clinton allegedly cries in New Hampshire. Only, if you look closely, she doesn’t actually cry—she simply speaks in emotional terms. In 2004, Howard Dean’s scream allegedly destroyed his campaign. In truth his campaign had already peaked and John Kerry had already destroyed Dean in Iowa.In 1987 Gary Hart supposedly destroyed his campaign by issuing a challenge to the press “Go ahead and follow me around. You won’t find anything and you will be bored.” But what everyone always forgets is the story where that this was quoted came out one day AFTER the Miami Herald broke the story about Hart’s Monkey Business. Did Ed Muskie’s crying in New Hampshire destroy his candidacy in 1972? In truth he was an establishment candidate who didn’t campaign very hard and was seen as a sinking ship. Even the supposed tears on his face are questionable, given that it was snowing on him at the time.So what’s the point? I am a lifelong fan of politics and the art of the sound bite. But the more I follow both, I realize that the political media and other observers will often latch on to a sound bite to try to impose a narrative onto a story and to establish a cause and effect when it fact all they are doing is guessing. I think Hillary Clinton’s emotional moment in New Hampshire was a compelling emotional moment. But did it turn the election? I find that a dubious proposition.