[crabkin]

I'd be pretty surprised if good verbal communicators aren't usually good writers. I think politicians persuade people not by the clarity, conciseness, or coherence of their speech, but by the substance of their speech. If communication itself could be abstracted from the substance of what is communicated, then it wouldn't be true I think to attribute the success of certain politicians to their ability to communicate so much as their ability to choose what to communicate.

A writer has to be interesting though, every piece of writing we consider well written has a quality of gripping the mind. I'd argue then, that politicians though they may not be in the habit of writing long academic style treatises or "interesting" articles, perhaps it can be argued in the past they largely did, still if they are in part elected on the basis of their speech, must possess the same ability in writing.

If you don't believe me then how is it that Trump's tweets are works of art, "I have never seen a think person drinking Diet Coke,"The Coca Cola company is not happy with me--that's okay, I'll still keep drinking that garbage.", etc... Crude, in bad taste, whatever you say. Another example is Obama, who honestly has a gift for writing in the conventional sense.

[jackson1442]

I think it depends who you ask. If you watch most populist speeches, it’s all in the performance. How they move their hands, their bodies, they create an almost theatrical narrative by how they get loud and quiet throughout the speech.

You can also have incredibly skilled orators where it’s all in the substance, but you can really only do that if you message actually has substance to it in the first place.