How Are The Candidates' Presentation Skills?

Great leaders typically have great communication skills -- both verbal and nonverbal. And you can be certain that one of the politicians stumping the U.S. presidential campaign trail right now, and who will become the next U.S. President, will have an extraordinary set of natural and mastered communication skill sets.

Watch the candidates as they debate, campaign, and are interviewed for the communicating characteristics that deliver these perceptions, whether real or created.

Barak Obama
Obama's ability to communicate is what enabled him to capture the attention of Americans while an Illinois senator and join the presidential race at such a young age and with such short duration of experience in the first place.

Looking back at video clips of him previous to becoming a candidate, however, he is often reading from scripts and notes, and with the use of a teleprompter during early campaign speeches. But with the help of a topnotch communications team, he has paired his natural ability to present with a learned and well rehearsed set of communication skills and it has paid off enormously.

Obama develops a one-on-one intimate relationship with his audience, whoever that may consist of, as he would with contemporaries, peers, friends -- he brings them into and makes them part of a 'conversation.' He talks about how 'you' are involved in the future, and not 'who' he is or 'what' he has done so much as what 'all of us can do together in the future.' He inspires with carefully scripted though naturally and 'spontaneously' delivered wording and tone. He is eloquent and his genuine demeanor compels the listener with its authenticity -- whether he is enthusiastic, skeptical, cautious (talking diplomatically with foreign leaders of threatening nations), forewa
ing (the Iraq War, Iran), or sadness-tinged resoluteness (promoting his healthcare plan by describing his mother's dying of cancer while worrying that her health insurance wouldn't cover her illness). He is warm and open, but he is taken seriously because he delivers his talks with utmost seriousness.

Hillary Clinton
Unlike her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who involved the audience in his talks (much like Obama but with more charm), Hillary Clinton is frequently criticized as a mediocre public speaker. She is perceived by her audiences as insincere and, unlike Obama who involves his audience by talking about them, Clinton builds a barrier with her audience by making it a one-sided talk about herself. She rarely veers from plan -- events, words, even smiles. She is so scripted that her humanness is nonapparent, and she doesn't trail very far off script. With her highly respected political strengths she is able to make her platform policy points competently but she lacks emotion or a sense of humor. And although she may be more substance than style, her campaign stumping and speech-giving come across more as an obligatory step toward achieving her goal of presidency than of being sincere and authentic. Her robotic delivery generates a sense of inflexibility and lack of warmth.

She is well prepared, articulate, and on point but she is not connecting with her audience. Instead she appears to recite point by point from memory. She comes across direct, assertive, tough, focused (very often associated with 'masculine' characteristics) but she lacks any balancing 'female' characteristics.

John McCain
First, John McCain is an acknowledged, and legitimately and highly respected American hero.

The most obvious characteristic of John McCain's speaking presence is a sometimes overt and sometimes just-under-the-surface volatility or flashes of anger, which is very offputting to an audience, sometimes even causing apprehension or uneasiness in some. His just-on-the-edge-of-explosiveness tone lends itself to subconsciously wondering about irrationality. He delivers what can sound like tirades in a very strong, sometimes harsh and almost offensive way. This stiff delivery translates to an unyieldingness and inflexibility -- for instance, he believes that America is and should always be the super power of the world, predicting very definitively "that there is war, there will be war, there will always be war." He often comes across sounding like he 'knows better' than 'we' do. When he disagrees with an issue, he can even sound out of control. His delivery doesn't sound genuine, and though he's delivering his ideology and beliefs, his underlying volatility can make him sound authoritarian.

Mitt Romney
Many question the warmth and sincerity of Romney's smooth delivery from the platform. His style is a charismatic, slick one that the 'ordinary man' doesn't feel a commonality with and so there can be an instant barrier between him and his audience; his is not a delivery style that the general population can relate to. With a very polished look, and crisply, perfectly tailored suits and casual attire, he often comes across cold.

Romney is, however, articulate but he has exhibited an almost condescending style of speech, 'trying to make us understand,' a sort of 'dumbing it down' tone to his views. Showing little emotion he comes across straitlaced, plastic, too perfected, too removed from the reality of the everyday man or woman listening to him speak.

He shows no sense of humor, which, if sometimes present, would soften his tone.

However, he has been seemingly honest in addressing criticism that he has repeatedly flip-flopped on many issues, acknowledging that he has had changes of opinion, which he has come to believe in and stand up for. This can have two very opposite effects -- either deliver respect from his audience or conce
about his opinion reversals.

Romney does not have Obama's charisma, Clinton's script, or McCain's status as American hero, but it does appear from Romney's recent speeches that he has taken the advice and instruction of his communications team to heart and is trying to make his communication skills reverberate on a positive note with his audience.