Careful What You Communicate

Peggy Noonan, who wrote some speeches for Ronald Reagan, writes of him:

He thought speaking was a big part of leadership, but only part, and in his farewell address he went out of his way to say he never thought of himself as a great communicator. He thought he simply communicated great things—essentially, the vision of the Founders as applied to current circumstances.

Her theory is that his opponents drew the wrong conclusion from the success of his speeches. They didn't think what he communicated was great. It was conservative poppycock. So somehow his sheer oratorical gifts had sold that stuff to the American people.

Part of the Democrats' current problem, she writes, is that they thought they had their own Reagan in our current president.

They hoped his oratorical gifts could sell his stuff.
But as it turns out, that wasn't enough.