Michael Cohen

...In 1972, McGovern eloquently declared that now was the time for America to “come home.” His tag line in support of change was used to portray him and other Democrats as isolationist liberals for years thereafter.

By the same token, Mondale in 1984 promised change when he vowed to level with Americans and declared forthrightly that he would raise their taxes should he win the White House. Mondale’s words were “disastrous,” as author Michael A. Cohen argued, because they “served… more

In his brief time on the national stage Barack Obama has been compared to a host of great 20th-century orators, including John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. But the most apt comparison may be to one of the greatest 19th-century orators: Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist leader.

In The New York Times recent examination of Mr. Obama’s career as a law school professor, a former student noted that he regularly evoked Douglass and not simply for his speaking skills but also for his “use of a collective… more

When Barack Obama accepts the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, he will deliver his speech the way John F. Kennedy did in 1960: in a stadium.

The image of a stadium full of people waiting to hear a speech—a political speech, no less—underscores a somewhat overlooked aspect of the American scene: Speeches matter. In a day when comments muttered into an open microphone, or a distasteful joke captured on YouTube (macaca!) can alter the course of a campaign, it’s still the vision and policies outlined in speeches… more

...The great American campaign speech is obviously hard to pull off and, for the readers among us, now hard to find. Students no longer stand before classrooms and recite the hallowed words of past office-holders and -seekers, and the small volumes of political speeches that once lined every American library – I cadged some splendid ones when Dartmouth's Baker Library disposed of its collection 35 years ago – are a thing of the past.

 Thus the offerings in Michael A. Cohen's Live From the Campaign Trail meet… more

The bloody battle with Mrs Clinton might also have elevated Mr Obama's standing in the eyes of voters, some analysts believe. "In adversity has come opportunity," Michael Cohen, of the New America Foundation, said. "(He] has been able to confront difficult questions about his candidacy that would normally arise during the general election...LINK