McCain’s speaking talents captured in a nutshell, or rather in a mayonnaise jar that’s been left in the sun

From a piece, “How the candidates’ speaking styles play,” in the July 11 Christian Science Monitor, by Ariel Sabar:

McCain excels at the give-and-take with voters in town meetings and other intimate settings, where his unvarnished musings and grasp of policy detail play well. As far back as 2000, he branded his campaign bus the Straight Talk Express because of the free-wheeling gab sessions with journalists aboard, a rarity in an age of heavily managed access to presidential candidates.

But in larger venues and in speeches, McCain’s rhetorical style can sound like—as the Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert recently put it—“tired mayonnaise.” His yen for the prefatory “my friends” can weary. His body language—a smile after sternly pledging to follow Osama bin Laden to “the gates of hell”—can seem incongruous and ill-timed. His jokes often sound recycled, and his tongue is prone to slips, as when he promised earlier this month to “veto every single beer”—instead of bill—“with earmarks.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 12, 2008 05:18 PM | Send