It is feeling that sets a man thinking, and not the other way round.
George Bernard Shaw
Just a word to Hillary, from a former supporter. Lay off the "speeches don't put food on the table" stuff, okay? First, you're wrong. Second, you're wrong in a way that messes with people deep down inside where they live and breathe. Third, there's a way you can handle the fact that Barack Obama is one of the most gifted orators of the past fifty years, and you're not. So do me the favor you're not doing yourself, and listen.
What Obama has and you don't have is music. He's got a voice that is pleasant to hear and a sense of cadence and rhythm and repetition. It's quite obvious that he's aware of this and that he's studied it, and that you're not aware of it and don't care.
Now I admit that such a gift is no indication of superiority. Joe McCarthy had an extraordinary speaking voice. So did FDR. Lincoln's, by all accounts, was not so hot--thin and sort of upcountry. One of the best speaking voices of the last 25 years belongs to Rush Limbaugh--an Amati viola of a voice, played by a virtuoso. Hitler himself was one of the great orators of his time, as was Martin Luther King. So if your point is "you should analyze what he's saying rather than how he's saying it," that's fine.
But you're not saying that. What you say is "speeches don't put food on the table." Pardon me, Mrs. C., but they most emphatically do. Speeches give, and they take away. When we hear the great brass fanfare of FDR's "the only thing we have to feeeeeeeear...is feeeeeear---itsSELF!", we can feel how a crushed and desperate America found its feet again. Listen to Joe McCarthy's "I have heeeeere--in MY HAND..." and you'll feel how thousands of innocent Americans had dinner snatched from their tables. And who do you think, more than any single person, defeated your healthcare proposals way back when? The fat man over there with the viola case, Rush Limbaugh.
Just from these very few examples, anyone can see you're wrong abut speeches and food. And you're not a compelling speaker, that's all. You never will be. The question is, how do you handle the situation?
Handling the situation would be easier if Barack Obama (God forbid) were a Republican conservative. You could make a better point. You could say, "The siren song of this man's voice is luring our ship onto the rocks." Or you could say "the Pied Piper of Hamlin is leading us all down a rat hole." Or something like that. You'd be making a point, and a very good one, and at the same time conceding his gifts with good grace.
The problem is that you can't say that stuff, because there isn't enough difference between your points and his. If you suggest he's the Pied Piper, if you suggest he's the Siren Song luring our ship to the reef, nobody will listen to you, because it ain't so. (Not to mention it's still not a good idea to get too fancy. Remember the trouble you got in when you mentioned E.B. White? Governor Pataki's daughter had to come rescue you.)
So what should you do?
You should be at least a good sport. Nobody likes a student council candidate who complains about the competition's good looks. You have to acknowledge the difference and move past it. "It's pleasant and quite thrilling to listen to Mr. Obama when he says X. He gives an outstanding speech when he says X. But do you actually want X? Will you feel so delighted when you [insert X stuff, demonstrating your superior mastery of the issue] and you can't etc? [Repeat, and so come to a point.]"
That approach would at least leave people to their enjoy the show. It wouldn't insult people's knowledge of the way things really are, which is that great speakers often have the victory. And it would make you look like something you're not looking like lately, which is a person who has good judgment.