I saw the same thing during the debate, when he was giving bullet points instead of explaining things in detail.  He just assumes everyone has heard him and knows what he's talking about, when the fact is that every time you speak in public to a new audience, you have to reintroduce yourself and make what you're saying seem fresh and interesting no matter how you are dying of absolute boredom inside.

If it was a race speech, then what was the petty stuff doing in it.

But, I seemed alone in my criticism, and I am certainly not unbiased.

I thought his talk on Reagan was so convoluted that I wanted to sit him down and discuss editing with him.  :)

And I think his debate performances directly relate to his poor communication skills.  

SUSA was around 9 for DAYS but went down to about 6 at the end.

I look to SUSA during the longer period for (but they were definitely too high for awhile or Clinton's more negative tone in the last week may have changed their sampled folks) and then Zogby did a sudden upturn to the right number on the last day.

She does best when just being mother earth with a shadow of the father looming.  But the constant commander-in-chief stuff and (don't hate me for saying this) the jabbing finger is too Bill-like and doesn't work as well.  When she talks about issues that matter to most, when she connects as a woman who really understands all this stuff and is eager to work to make things better, she really reaches people.

I still think that in the end, the Democratic leaders are going to hand the nomination to Obama. He has a structural advantage at this point (lovingly preserved by the DNC by disenfranchising MI and FL) so it wouldn't "look right" to give the nomination to Hillary. Plus, they think that running Obama is going to help the Dem brand among young people, and that's worth losing in November.

But this is going to be a disaster, and at this point, I'm just pissed off enough to want Hillary to make it really, really evident that the party elders are screwing up--have done so since the primaries began and they clearly have attempted to stack the deck in Obama's favor. I know his supporters like to think of him as the anti-establishment candidate, but nothing is further from the truth. He's the DNC's preferred standard-bearer.

After the primaries end, the DNC will push the super delegates to declare and push Obama over the top. Hillary will concede and attempt to keep her supporters on board for the Dems this fall. She'll succeed to an extent, but the party is going to hemorrhage working-class support. The Democrats will once again be the party of the "liberal elites," the ones who can't win elections.

By the way, I said something like this at HuffPo this morning and was banned--which I've never been in my life. I've written "info" to ask why on earth I was banned when I didn't swear and didn't personally attack anyone--I just voiced an opinion contrary to that expressed by an Obamite who seemed to think the Democrats could function just fine without the "fat white drunks" in PA and Ohio. Had I said what I really thought, I could understand being banned. But I really did keep it civil. I wasn't banned for HOW I expressed my opinion but for my opinion. Pretty disturbing.