WORDS.

"In a sweeping, sprawling, drawling 48-minute stemwinder of a speech last night, the former President of the United States drove a rhetorical truck through the biggest opening that Mitt Romney and the Republicans created for Democrats last week.

 ...Writing on Paul Ryan last week, I said that we shouldn’t be surprised that his speech was less wonky than his reputation, since a VP address is “hardly the time to talk about block grants and premium support and whether to peg spending rates to inflation or G.D.P. plus one percent.” But Clinton reminded us that this need not be true — that it’s possible to get wonky without losing your audience, and to embrace policy detail as a weapon against your opponents. Journalists tend to assume that voters tune policy substance out, and when the substance is delivered droningly or too abstractly no doubt they often do. But for the most effective rhetoricians, the mere act of talking in detail about the work of government can be a more effective way to persuade the public that you’re serious than a hundred vague promises to 'make the hard choices” and “level with the American people.'..."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The Clinton Magic