Is the Ability to Speak Extemporaneously a Gauge of One's Passion?

Rush Limbaugh prides himself on his ability to speak loudly, longly and lovingly without so much as a note card. He addressed the C-PAC crowd in 2009 naked except for his clothes. He attributes this skill to his unbridled passion.

Beck. Palin. Bachmann. Gingrich. They can wing it without a teleprompter even if Sarah might write notes on her hand. Rubio can also go a mile a minute without memory aids. The speakers we like and believe can speak off the cuff.

But maybe extemporaneous speech is just a freakish skill. Like whistling or rapping or rhyming. We don't usually think of these things when we measure a speaker's commitment. Is extemporaneous speaking just one more gimmick?

We have all been in a position where we knew what we thought but we just could not make our point. A universal experience. We were passionate about A, B, C and D but we could not make our point.We have all been there.

I have some sympathy for Walter Mondale, though I would never have voted for him. Fritz is Exhibit A of the politician who could not project his personality to an audience. Believe it or not, Mondale's private persona was warm and carefree. He liked to wear a silly hat and smoke a cigar and crack jokes as he manned his backyard grill. The consummate host. But put in the spotlight, Fritz became Walter and Reagan won by a landslide.

Obama is notably weak on anything impromptu. His reliance on the teleprompter is a national joke. But he is not the best speaker for us to gauge passion because he never really says anything. His speech is mostly void of content so how can we assess if he believes what he is saying? One has to actually say something before we can determine if a person believes what they say.

Which brings us to Mitt Romney. Three miles away from here, Romney announced that he was a 2012 candidate. He used a teleprompter to do so. Ding! Mitt the Flip. Romneycare. Mr. Ethanol. Mr. Farm Subsidy. Mr. Corporate Welfare. Our teleprompter is better than your teleprompter.

A lot has been made of Reagan's thespian background and his application to the political world. Point taken. Maybe he was the great communicator because of his polished skills. Then again, maybe he found public speaking easy because he really believed in what he said.

Whatever else can be said about Romney, I don't see his as the Anti-Obama. Nope. He might be the better of two choices but can he inspire? Can he get the apathetic or the independent or the undecided to vote for him? For that matter, can he inspire his own party to stand behind him?

Until we have that battle of the teleprompters, I will give a long look to any candidate who can speak from the heart. Cain. Bachmann. Even Newt deserves another chance. Hope and change is what we need. More importantly, we need a candidate who can speak those passions without reading them.