cameronr:

mills:

topherchris:

Which candidate’s website has more specifics about their stance on the issues?

Remember a few years ago when the defeated Democrats began complaining that the only reason the Republicans won so often was because they’d mastered the art of “framing,” of defining the language and structure of any debate so that it favored them?

The Clintons do! They’ve been working hard, and somewhat successfully, to promulgate the idea that Obama is an orator without substance. Obama opens himself to this critique slightly by favoring rhetoric in his speeches, but then again: that’s what speeches are for.

As an analogy: imagine if in Shakespeare’s Henry V, to his surely doomed men the king had offered not stirring promises of glory but a factual, reductive discussion of which unit would attempt which flanking maneuver. Sometimes, oratory has a place.

If you want Obama’s views, look to his policy papers, proposals, and website. If you want to be energized for his campaign and inclined to support him, listen to him speak. He understands politics better than wonks, despite the Clintons efforts to suggest that he’s “all talk.”