Like Vice-President Gore, Senator Clinton suffers from a common public speaking problem: she assumes an air of earnestness mixed with pedantry and concern, which makes her far less charming at the podium than she is in one-on-one or small-group settings. This is common among speakers who are so concerned with Getting The Message Across that they can’t just relax and be themselves. And somehow, some very smart people fail to realize that this actually gets in the way of The Message.

Vice-President Gore is afflicted with the worst case of this I’ve seen in anyone whose job requires so much public speaking. If he had simply let his personality at the podium be the same as his personality on David Letterman’s show, he would’ve been elected with plenty of margin to spare.

There’s not much about me that’s Presidential; but if you gave me a neutral audience and a good topic, I would put my public speaking skills against Senator Clinton’s or Vice-President Gore’s any day, and be pretty confident that I would win the audience over. With Senator Obama, I’m not sure I would stand a chance, even with an audience friendly to my points. He’s relaxed and natural and quick, and he’s much funnier than I am.