The Occasional Observer

The details here.

I think you know a stump speech has gone awry when this is how it ends:

Twenty-four minutes after he began speaking in a small restaurant the other day, Fred Thompson brought his remarks to a close with a nod of his head and an expression of thanks to Iowans for allowing him to “give my thoughts about some things.”

Then he stood face to a face with a silent audience.

“Can I have a round of applause?” Mr. Thompson said, drawing a rustle of clapping and some laughter.

“Well, I had to drag that out of you,” he said.

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: aren't Republicans tired of having their leader try to skate by on phony folksy appeal, when we could have someone capable of clear, persuasive, and articulate rhetoric?

BTW, I use "rhetoric" in the classic sense, not the modern pejorative sense. I found some great classic definitions of the term here:

Plato: Rhetoric is "the art of winning the soul by discourse."

Aristotle: Rhetoric is "the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion."

Cicero: Rhetoric is "speech designed to persuade."