For the speechwriters among us, the New York Times helpfully offers a web site dissecting the basic stump speeches of Obama and McCain.
On a related note, James Surowiecki concludes that McCain’s speeches were hampered by his use of “inside-the-beltway shorthand.”
One of the reasons John McCain isn’t especially successful as a debater, or as a speechmaker, is that he often discusses issues by using inside-the-Beltway shorthand, a shorthand that’s completely baffling to anyone who doesn’t already know what he’s talking about—which is say, completely baffling to almost all American voters.
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