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There are a number of ways you can answer this question.Are you asking who among them is the most technically proficient at delivering prepared remarks with an absence of mistakes?Are you asking who connects best with his audience?Are you asking who had the most resonant message and was able to deliver it most effectively?The problem here is “public speaking skills” is a somewhat vague concept. Did George W. Bush have poor public speaking skills because he would mispronounce words and sometimes lose his train of thought after speaking for an hour? Some would say that yes, indeed, he does have poor public speaking skills. Others might point to technically proficient speakers with precise delivery of a crisp message — like his father, George H.W. Bush — and say a lack of charisma or connection with the audience meant he had poor speaking skills.In the reverse, some would say George W. Bush was an excellent speaker because he developed a clear connection to the audience, had purpose with everything he said, exuded authenticity, and that his occasional mistakes actually bought him credibility with his audience. Some would say that George H.W. Bush was an excellent speaker because he never made any mistakes, was deliberate and coherent, and never relied on filler words like “um,” in his speeches.I’ve worked in politics for a long time, so when I look at a politician and view their relative speaking ability, I consider the following ten things, all of which are based on my perception of what makes a truly effective speaker, rather than simply the book definition of a good public speaker:Confidence, passion and the ability to convey emotionAbility to be memorableAbility to credibly relate to the audience and draw them inAbility to tell an effective story, and use of imageryAbility to emotionally affect the audienceTechnical proficiency (voice modulations, clarity vs. clumsiness, etc)Lack of disfluency such as “um” “uh” “like,” etc.Creativity (humor, wit, self-deprecation)BrevityBody language while speakingNow, of course, some of these things are more important to a communicator than others. I value the ability to be memorable and emotionally influence the audience to be more important than occasionally slipping into disfluency.Regardless, every president has relative strengths and weaknesses. Some more than others. But the first lesson here should be that all of them are effective communicators with a particular talent for public speaking. Yes, even that one you didn’t like, or that one you thought was a mortal threat to the American Republic. Yes, even that one that you think is a drooling idiot.You don’t get to be president without an ability to speak publicly. You may find this one or that one to be a stuttering mess, but where they may be weak in one area, they are strong in others.So I will attempt to rank them below. Note that I will be ranking them in totality, on their ability to speak publicly in a variety of venues and situations. So if somebody is a truly remarkable speech giver, but is incoherent when giving a press conference or doing a television interview, they will be judged on the totality of their relative skill in all venues a president must walk in.I will, of course, explain the selections in detail.Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan’s profession, prior to politics, was a combination of speaking and storytelling. As an actor, he was trained in the delivery of lines, was well practiced in reading and memorizing scripts, and understood that how you looked and sounded as you deliver a message were just as important as the message itself.To deny that Ronald Reagan is the most gifted communicator of the last ten presidents would be lunacy. In basically every measurable way, he was the equal of, or superior to the other nine.Reagan’s best strength was in understanding his audience, and relating to them in what felt like a genuine, authentic way. He understood people, and how to command a room.In particular, his use of warmth and humor to engender trust and positive feelings of connection were both unique among his colleagues, and effective. He was famous for his one liners and jokes, which he peppered into most speeches. Indeed it was his humor that provided one of the most memorable debate moments, when legitimate questions about his age and stamina were utterly obliterated by a joke that left his opponent, Walter Mondale, cracking up on camera as Reagan cooly sipped a glass of water like a boss.He also smiled a lot. Reagan’s sunny, positive style seems a relic when compared to the caustic and often acrimonious communications of today’s politicians, but it was terribly effective. It was very hard to dislike Reagan for his personality. Look no further than his undeniable ownership of Congress in his address to the body after his assassination attempt.Not that he didn’t know when to show strength with a flash of passion and outrage. In the 1980 Republican primary, Reagan was facing off with his future Vice President, George H.W. Bush and a number of other competitors. After a moderator threatened to cut off a microphone at the candidate debate that Reagan paid for, he famously quipped with a scowl, “I am paying for this microphone, Mr. Green,” despite the fact that the moderator’s name was Breen, not Green. The quip made him look commanding and strong, and utterly wiped out all of his competition in New Hampshire.He also had a knack for the inspirational, a pitch perfect delivery and a real sense of the moment, which we saw on full display in his speech following the Challenger disaster.And of course, he could be both unifying, and also deeply ideological. His 1964 televised appeal on behalf of Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign, titled “A Time for Choosing,” is still used today for inspirational quotes and clips in conservative and libertarian audiences. His 1981 Inaugural Address still remains one of the most ideological — and memorable — speeches in history, with famous lines like, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”And sometimes, all of it could be wrapped up into one moment. Perfect delivery. Strongly ideological, yet also unifying. Emotional. Creative. Being memorable, and speaking with passion. Possessing Brevity.His message to General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall and allow the free passage of East Germans into the West was such a moment. I still can’t listen to that speech without pervasive chills rushing through my body, and feeling my eyes begin to water. It was perfect in every way.Reagan had it all. Diction, pronunciation, clarity, timing, rhythm and so much more. He clearly deserves the top honor.Bill ClintonMost people would put Barack Obama second (or even first) on this list, and I certainly understand why. I’ll get to him in a moment, but ultimately the desire to place Obama over Clinton is really just a bad case of recentism, whereby people remember and value things more that are chronologically near, and discount or forget things further away.Bill Clinton was an absolute master of communication. He is the only one on this list that even belongs in the debate with Reagan.Clinton’s presence in second place owes to his overall command — like Reagan — of every form of communication, and the ease and skill with which he communicated in a variety of settings.Clinton, for instance, was just as good, and just as comfortable when he was giving a State of the Union speech, as he was sitting down with CNN for an interview.His best weapon as a communicator was the incredible connection and empathy he always had with his audience.The joke in the 1990s was always that Clinton could “feel your pain” and was relating to you, with his lower lip bitten and his thumb pointing directly at your soul. For all the jokes he inspired, however, it was undeniable that when Bill Clinton was talking to you, you felt like you were the only person in the world.President Clinton had a warm, genuine speaking style that was undoubtedly helped by his gentle southern accent. Whereas the Texas drawl of George W. Bush made him (unfairly) look like an uneducated back-country hick, Clinton’s slight southern drawl gave him a soft, easy voice that put the listener at ease, without making him sound less intelligent. This could have been due to his vocabulary, or the manner he carried himself in.Regardless, he felt like “one of us” rather than “one of them” to most Americans.You always wanted to believe Clinton, even when you knew he was completely full of it.In any event, Clinton was a master of imagery, constantly coming up with phrases that evoked complex concepts, like his now famously quaint “Bridge to the 21st Century.”He was also very good at telling stories and emotionally connecting with the audience. Part of his third-way triangulation was finding out what middle America cared about, and then trying to find a way to show that he cared about it too.Every time Bill Clinton spoke, you felt like you were at the dinner table with him and he was telling you a story while carving the leg of a turkey at Thanksgiving. That inclusive, charismatic warmth is the key to his political success, and it is why he is a phenomenal communicator.Barack ObamaBarack Obama is a person I disagree with politically, but his ability to communicate is unquestioned.My first awareness of him as a politician was his truly fantastic keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, where he famously remarked about national unity, and the false division of red states and blue states.I will be honest, I am a Republican and I never voted for Barack Obama, but when he spoke that night, I found myself emotionally moved. He delivered a message that was beyond the Democrats in the audience that night.I responded to the speech, and found myself… inspired. He delivered a truly moving portrait of his life, and of the potential of the citizens of the American republic. He spoke in a way I had not heard Democrats speak since John F. Kennedy — hopeful and aspirational, skeptical of a government that does everything for its people, but one that helps it reach great dreams.I ultimately didn’t believe him — and believe the eight years of his presidency more or less shows his message that night was a false representation of his actual agenda — but the point was, he commanded that stage, and he captured me, someone who had absolutely no interest in listening to him going in to the speech. That is a powerful and rare thing.Obama is, as I mentioned before, most people’s choice for either the best or second best communicator on the list. And he certainly deserves consideration.He did it again to me in 2008, in his victory speech after the Iowa Caucus. I had, of course, been paying attention to the Democratic primary, but that was the moment that I first heard his rather defiant yet inspirational message of “yes we can.” His speech was oozing with the message that he and his supporters had been told that they couldn’t do what they were trying to do, and that they should sit down and shut up, but that they refused to listen and shocked the world.That was a powerful message, and once again, it stirred some feelings in my cold, dead Republican heart. I wasn’t quite Chris Matthews with his famously tingly leg, but the way he talked about the country and what he wanted to do resonated with me, and I think a lot of other Republicans too.That year, we were all searching for catharsis after the long, divisive years at war against terrorism, and with George W. Bush’s approval rating hovering in the lower 30s or high 20s. We were aching for a unifying figure, and Barack Obama said all the right things, and he said them perfectly, with a preacher’s charisma and precision.At that moment, I said to myself, “well, I suppose if we have to lose, maybe things won’t be so bad if this guy wins.” Again, that isn’t how things turned out, in my opinion, but that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? Only a truly powerful communicator could make me feel that type of thing, whether it was true or not.Obama was not perfect, though. He was most comfortable at the head of a political movement, and he was also most comfortable campaigning. Once elected, his inspirational nature slipped into pretty pedestrian territory — his inaugural address was entirely forgettable, for instance, which was a huge disappointment — and he didn’t have the warm personality, humor, or natural political instincts that Reagan and Clinton had.He was also a far worse communicator in interviews and press conferences than he was as a prepared speaker, which gets him some points off. Reagan and Clinton were naturally comfortable in virtually all settings, and had a similar command no matter where they were.Obama was not, and would often speak in halted, choppy language. He stuttered a lot, filled a lot of long pauses with “ums,” and was often entirely forgettable when he was speaking off the cuff.Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t bad. But he wasn’t good, either. All non-prepared speeches by Obama felt like cold, professorial discussions. This is the main reason why he is third, rather than first or second.George W. BushWhat?How could I put George W. Bush, he of the eight years of Bushism, this high on the list?Great question, let me answer it for you.People get distracted by technical proficiency, as though that is the single most important factor of speech. Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan were careful, deliberate, and spoke clearly and without confusion, thus people consider them excellent communicators.And to be sure, your ability to communicate is hampered by disfluency or clumsiness. Bush’s certainly was.But here’s the thing: effective communication is not all about delivering your message perfectly. It very much helps, but in the realm of politics where leaders are marshaling the people to follow them in certain directions, it isn’t everything.Where Bush loses points in ramblings about OBGYN’s practicing their love with women, he gains it in other areas. A short accounting of what he brought to the table as a communicator:Conviction, confidence, and a clear belief in what he’s sayingAbility to relate to the audience, and connect with them on a personal, oftentimes emotional level.A real knack for storytelling, and the use of imagerySelf-deprecation, humor and yes, witThe ability to be truly memorableBush believed in what he was saying, every single time he opened his mouth. You may believe he made a poor decision, or that he is responsible for a variety of tragic mistakes — those things are debatable — but he believed it.When a speaker believes in what they are saying, the audience tends to pick up on it, and it leaves them with an impression, and the passion and conviction are very persuasive.Maybe he never persuaded you. I understand that. But you must realize that for millions of Americans, his conviction and the perception of his genuineness and authenticity gave him a powerful command over his audience, especially members of his political base and independent voters.Moreover, he was an absolute master of connecting emotionally with his audience. Coastal, upper class, college educated people have a really difficult time understanding this, but to a great majority of Americans, he felt like a good guy trying to do the right thing, even when he failed.When he spoke, he didn’t talk of “mothers and fathers,” he spoke of “moms and dads.” His language was casual, comfortable, and relatable. He spoke — including the screwups — like a lot of us speak. He felt normal. He felt natural.Remember the “which candidate would you rather get a beer with?” question? That is a function of that natural connection with the average person.This is the biggest reason why most of the country was forgiving and dismissive of his verbal gymnastics.Bush was also, generally speaking, a happy person who used snark, wit and humor in his speeches. He seemed to frequently want to make you laugh. That is such a powerful weapon that few politicians seem to grasp today.And love or hate the man, it is impossible to deny that he was memorable. I still get chills, as do a lot of Americans, when I see the footage of him in New York, yelling at a frustrated audience of firefighters and first responders, “I hear you!”You have his address to a joint session of Congress on September 20th, 2001, and specifically the moment when he held up the badge of Port Authority Police Officer George Howard, who had died in the attacks.You have Axis of Evil. Announcing the ultimatum to Saddam Hussein and his sons mandating that they leave Iraq, and then later the announcement of the Iraq invasion. You have Mission Accomplished. There are literally dozens of examples where his rhetoric and delivery were incredibly memorable and effective.And remember, effective communication does not mean effective policies. That is a debate for a different time.In the end, Bush was unpolished, but very effective. And that, after all, is what we are evaluating right now.Richard NixonNixon, in many ways, is similar to Bush. He was unpolished. Not in the same way that Bush was, in fumbling constantly over himself or losing his train of thought while speaking. No, his lack of polish was in language, style of speech, vocabulary, and the general personality of his voice.Nixon certainly became an elite, going to law school, running for political office and eventually becoming vice president and later president. But he was, in reality, a product of the working class. He was raised by evangelical Quakers in rural California. He was poor, his family ranch failed, and his father eventually opened a grocery store and gas station.I say this to explain Nixon’s general appeal. While he reached the highest of highs, his character was formed in that working class environment. It is why he resented elites, why he always felt inadequate next to John Kennedy, and why he didn’t trust a lot of people.We can put Nixon on the psychologist’s couch, but we are talking about speaking ability here. Thus, the reason I bring up his worldview and character is to explain where his choice of language and rhetoric came from.Nixon related to the everyman. He was, in many ways, the original anti-elite president who sparred with the press, and complained about the elite Eastern Establishment. His mission was to appeal to, as he called it, “The Great Silent Majority” — the marginalized voter who was being ignored by the stuffy intellectuals running government.That made his speaking style a bit rough. It was adversarial. It was unpolished, as I said before. But, in an early appeal to the populist wave that would fester and grow over the course of decades, it felt real to a huge percentage of Americans. It felt genuine. It felt authentic.And with that authenticity came a power that made him very effective. He didn’t win a 49 state landslide by accident — yes, McGovern’s campaign was a train wreck, but Nixon spoke to a real sentiment in the American voter, and that was all related with his ability to communicate complex things with a real genuineness.Now, what about all those things I judge speakers on, like ability to be memorable? Certainly he of the Checkers Speech and “I am not a crook” qualifies as a very memorable speaker.This is definitely true, his ability to be memorable is undeniable, and as I have mentioned before, I do not judge a speaker’s quality to be dependent on the ultimate eventuality and consequence of what he said.Where I dock points for Nixon is in the way in which he was memorable. Everything that is widely remembered about Nixon speaking is related to damage control, and defensively trying to spin a story he did not have ultimate control over.Do you remember any of his State of the Union addresses? Is there a “nothing to fear but fear itself” moment in his presidency about an affirmative message he wanted to deliver, or a major policy he championed?Nixon did a lot. He took us off the gold standard, ramped up and then ended the Vietnam War, opened China, and built a detente with the Soviet Union. Yet, where is the memorable rhetoric from these moments in time.Nixon was a master of damage control, and was very memorable when defending himself. When he wanted to deliver his own message and promote his own cause, however, he was merely pedestrian. Effective, but pedestrian.That is why he is as low as he is on the list.Donald TrumpI know you were expecting Donald Trump to come in last, here. I’m guessing you probably don’t like him. I myself have been quite critical of him.But one thing we know about Trump is that he is a terrible communicator, right?After all, his speaking style is perhaps the most easily lampooned of any president in American history. The way he holds his right hand in the “a-ok” sign while squinting and making that strange face. The pattern of speech. Everything being “the best” and “so incredible.” The raw, visceral nature of his language.But remember, here, folks, we are not judging their presidency, their agenda or their record. I’m judging everyone on my list on their ability to communicate, not the content of what they’re communicating about, and my agreement or non-agreement with it. We need to be able to do that.We also aren’t playing an elitist game of ridiculing speech that doesn’t sound like it was delivered by a college professor.We are judging the effectiveness of their ability to communicate.Trump loses points — a lot of them — on my technical proficiency metric. He loses still more given all his disfluency. He very rarely uses humor, and is never self-deprecating. All result in his loss of points.But confidence? Check. Ability to project a message? Check. Ability to emotionally manipulate his audience? Check. Ability to credibly relate to the audience as one of them, engendering their trust? Check. And these aren’t just checkmarks, he excels in all of these areas, often times more effectively than nearly everyone above him on the list.Trump is divisive, but he also commands a unique loyalty among his most ardent supporters, which is directly related to the way in which he conveys the messages he conveys. He uniquely understands the audience he is communicating with, and as a result he speaks with them in a certain way, with certain language, with a certain inflection, with a certain attitude, that commands an incredible power.Again, set aside all your judgements. That isn’t the exercise we are undertaking right now. It is possible to oppose and even be horrified by a message and people’s reaction to that message, and still understand the power of his ability to communicate. It is possible to worship the ground someone walks on while also recognizing their many shortcomings.Let’s just deal with the question of communication here.Millions of voters that felt like politicians ignored them and didn’t speak to them, their lives, or their concerns, finally had somebody talking to them. And to them, he sounded like he understood, and that he shared those concerns with them. He did not win states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin by accident.Remember, also, that this question isn’t asking for the most broadly appealing speaker. You don’t necessarily get extra points because you have higher popularity or are speaking in vague generalities to all people. You can have a narrow focus that is your goal — as is true of Trump — and not lose points.The question is about the audience you choose to speak to, and your ability to speak effectively to them.Trump targeted a group of people who he felt he needed to activate in order to win his election, and he effectively delivered a message and style that worked with them.You don’t think he is able to do that outside his current target audience?Okay. How about his ability, thirty years ago, to charm the pants off Oprah and her studio audience, delivering much the same message in a far more muted and rational sounding way. When talking to elites, he sounds elite.Or think of his time — back when he was regarded as a reasonably fun and interesting celebrity, and no one really hated him for anything political — doing cameos in movies and media appearances. He masterfully manipulated coverage of himself, and generally cultivated a very reasonable image.Or think of his time on The Apprentice, when he was playing a caricature of himself, portraying himself as a tough and demanding boss quick to fire people who didn’t measure up.My point is, Trump is a very effective chameleon. He identifies who his audience is, learns how to market himself to them, and crafts his speech and style to match. That is the hallmark of a deceptively effective communicator, and he would be higher if he didn’t lose all those points I mentioned before.Lyndon JohnsonSeveral of the older presidents start at an automatic disadvantage.Not because they were less capable, less intelligent, or even that they were less talented communicators.Rather, the playing field was different, and produced different people who didn’t necessarily excel at communicating.What the president did to communicate four or five decades ago was wholly different than it is today. A president’s radio address, — a dry, written out speech read flatly on the radio — was considered a great deal more important than it is today. Stump speeches on the trail were not broadcast live on cable news, tweeted out on social media, and shared on a candidate’s website.Presidents were generally expected to give a few big, important addresses to the American people. Inaugural addresses. State of the Union speeches. Oval Office addresses to the country for a big national event.These were usually delivered relatively dispassionately, and were used to communicate information, and inform the public about a set course of action or initiative. They were far less likely to be emotive, or tell stories, or try to rally a political movement in the way that presidents of today speak.Take, for instance, President Johnson’s speech to the press in 1964 on the “crisis in Vietnam” — it was a titanic announcement he was making. Johnson was informing the public that he was ordering military retaliation after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was among the earliest steps in the escalation of the Vietnam War.Listen to Johnson’s voice. He sounds as though he was a newscaster reading a bulletin.Then you have the State of the Union addresses, which are the most overt cheerleading you see from a sitting president. Johnson, here, was more expressive than in other forums, but was still generally stilted and flat by comparison to modern presidents.And campaigning, which is where any leader who ends up in the White House is at their most bombastic, and in which their skills at commanding an audience are at the most pronounced, was very different in the 1960s.Campaign stops were far less about inspiring speeches, and far more about people getting to simply see the candidate. Cable news didn’t show non-stop, 24/7 campaigning across the country, but rather might have occasionally shown candidates at planned events. TV commercials were the main vehicle of hearing a candidate’s voice for most people, outside the rare candidate debates.In short, the communications environment for somebody like Johnson necessitated far less in the way of communication skills. Because less was asked, in this regard, from those who ran for president, it is only natural that the people who ended up becoming president were generally less inspirational speakers.There are exceptions, of course. Franklin Roosevelt was a never ending gift to political rhetoric. Truman had his moments. Even Eisenhower could be quite memorable.But as a general rule, it requires far more effective communication skills today than it did in Johnson’s time.Still, Johnson was hardly a slouch. He could speak, and deliver a message well. Indeed, he was a passionate advocate for many things, including his Great Society programs, and the Civil Rights Act, and he was generally at his best when making the case for those ideas.But Johnson’s real skill, from a speaking perspective, was in interpersonal communication. Johnson was an absolute master of the gregarious, southern, back-slapping schmooze, and it is the main reason for his legislative success on some very big initiatives of his.Johnson had a real gift for learning what mattered to you, and then communicating with you in such a way that made you feel like you wanted to do him a favor, even though he was asking for something from you.This isn’t the traditional definition of “public speaking,” but I think it counts, if for no other reason than it translated very well to Johnson speaking to groups of people in a legislative setting, in the Oval Office, or at small functions, and it made him very persuasive.Workmanlike and competent in the traditional arenas of presidential speech, coupled with superior personal and small group interactions? That gets him the nod over those below him.George H.W. BushI really hate to put H.W. this far down the list.He had his moments. Though it ended up backfiring on him later, his delivery of “read. my. lips.” was an absolutely tremendous example of campaign speech delivery.As president, he also made very good use of imagery in spots. Notably, his often used Thousand Points of Light were an exceptional bit of rhetoric.And he could be very persuasive. His address to Congress on the subject of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was very well done, and did an awful lot to get some members of Congress and the public behind the eventual confrontation with Saddam Hussein which would commence three months later.Bush also gets high marks on my evaluation for his crisp delivery. He delivers a very smooth speech, well spoken, with no hiccups. Quite proficient. Tone of voice is great, and he usually does it with a lot of conviction.However…While I find all of those things important, they are far less important (in my book) than the ability to relate to, and emotionally connect with, an audience. This is why I rank his son, George W. Bush, higher than him, despite the elder Bush’s superior delivery.George H.W. Bush was a very patrician aristocrat. He was a blue-blooded, northeastern, wealthy member of an elite family.I don’t hold this against him, but he struggled his entire political career to convince the poor, working class “regular” folk that he even understood what their lives looked like.And frankly, he probably didn’t. He was a child of privilege, and his success in life was consistent and secure. It is hard for a person like that to know what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck, or how it feels when you lose a job.As a result, the rhetoric he chose, the stories he told, and the imagery he summoned were very much in line with his own worldview and experience, rather than that of the audience.There is a moment in his 1992 town hall debate with then Governor Bill Clinton that really crystalizes this problem of Bush’s.An audience member asked Bush, Clinton and Ross Perot how the national debt has affected each of their lives. Bush, after famously checking his watch, couldn’t comprehend what she was asking, and fumbled the answer, highlighting his own wealth and rambling about teenage pregnancy, showing his disconnection from the average person, before talking about stimulating exports and improving education.Clinton stood up, and started asking the questioner about herself, before launching into a brilliant answer that made the general audience feel like he actually knew struggle, and that he truly understood what people were going through.That was one of the biggest reasons why George H.W. Bush did not get himself a second term. Not that single debate moment, mind you, but the general perception, which he himself inadvertently fostered, that he was an out of touch elite.In short, he couldn’t connect. His ability to emote with, manipulate and command an audience simply wasn’t there.And that stiffness really hampered his ability to communicate, and it is why he finds himself this low, despite actually excelling in some areas.Gerald FordGerald Ford was never supposed to be president. In fact, he was never elected to any executive office, which is unique among the men who have become president. Ford was appointed to the Vice Presidency, and ascended to the Oval Office when Nixon resigned.I find that fact important, because he never went through the rigors of a presidential campaign. He had been elected to Congress, certainly, and that is no small feat. But he didn’t travel the country making speeches. He didn’t do televised debates. He wasn’t cheerleading at political rallies in the same way that presidential candidates do. He didn’t even make a convention speech.No, he was appointed by Nixon in the middle of Watergate and sort of just found himself president.Yes, it is true that Ford then went on to run for re-election in 1976, and so he did in fact have an opportunity to do all of those things in that campaign.My point, though, was that he did not become president after having first passed through those various bars. Thus, public speaking was not exactly something he needed, or something that he proved to have, in order to sit in the White House.It should be no surprise, then, that Ford was a middling speaker. Again, even the worst speakers on this list are more than capable enough to be president, and to lead in general, but compared to the others, he was not very memorable, and never really demonstrated any exceptional skills in any area.Indeed, the most noteworthy and memorable speeches that Ford made were one where he announced something very controversial (the Nixon pardon) and one where he made a major mistake in a debate (“there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe”). Both were memorable for the impact of the statement, and not in a good way.Overall, Ford was fine, but quite weak in comparison to the others.Jimmy CarterFinally, we have our final chief executive, President Jimmy Carter.Now let me repeat what I just said. Even the worst communicator on this list is actually a good communicator. You simply do not become President of the United States if you are a babbling idiot, despite what partisans of either side would like you to believe.Jimmy Carter was just fine. He could give a speech. He could deliver a message. He could communicate well.But, when compared to the others on this list, Carter was simply incapable of commanding his audience and leading.Carter faced many challenges in his tenure in the White House, both foreign and domestic. The country was still divided by Watergate. The Energy Crisis. The Iran hostage crisis.In each of these instances, he failed to rally the country.Carter himself was elected because of Watergate. The country wanted a fresh start, and to heal from the wounds of that had dominated the early 1970s. Carter was an outsider, was not a member of the establishment, and seemed to exude honest and personal virtue.Once elected, though, he did not lead a major government movement to restore faith in Washington. There was no major series of speeches meant to rally the country behind reforms to make government trustworthy. In fact, Carter simply moved on, business as usual, after Ford, who had been Nixon’s chosen vice president and had pardoned him.During the energy crisis, he seemed to the average American to be impotent and uninspiring.Responding to the economic malaise of the 1970s, Carter sought to reassure the country, telling us that we simply suffered from a “crisis of confidence,” which was so widely ridiculed that is has been described as one of the most politically tone def speeches of modern times.And as America and the world saw the fundamentalist takeover of Iran, and the taking of American hostages, Jimmy Carter’s rhetorical response seemed perpetually weak, and out of touch.Again, we could probably debate whether any of these reactions was fair, and what successes and failures his administration is responsible for. As I’ve said, this is not a political evaluation of the respective presidents, it is an evaluation of their ability to speak and communicate.And it is simply inarguable that Jimmy Carter failed to communicate with the American people his entire time in office. It is why he attracted a primary challenge from Ted Kennedy from within his own party, and it is one of the main reasons why he lost in a landslide to Ronald Reagan.Whatever the truth of his actions and their wisdom or lack thereof, he should rank as the weakest communicator out of the last ten presidents.And so ends my ranking. Hope you enjoyed it.

The best kind of speech is one which accomplishes your purpose (or purposes) for speaking. As a public speaker you need to answer this question: "What do I want this speech to accomplish?"There are four broad purposes for speaking, and while there will always be crossover elements among the four purposes, they are:to inform or educateto persuadeto inspireto entertainINFORMIf your purpose is primarily to inform or educate, the "best" speech will accomplish just that: the informing or educating of your audience. To that end, you need to come up with a thesis statement which summarizes or encapsulates the hoped-for learning outcomes for your audience members.Years ago I learned that good teachers have lesson plans, and an important part of those plans is to have a statement which specifies what your students will be able to do once the lesson has been presented.If, for example, a social studies teacher who has just finished a unit on “The Age of World Exploration” wants her students to be able to tell why Christopher Columbus attempted to find the New World, a purpose statement might read: "At the end of my lecture on ‘Fifteenth Century Heroes of Exploration,’ my students will be able to answer a short essay question by giving three reasons why Columbus was attempting to find the New World.'"Similarly, a public speaker who wants to inform an audience will have a purpose statement which lays out what his or her audience will be able to do when the speech is concluded. If that purpose is to inform the audience about how to register to vote in an upcoming election, a learning outcome might be: "After my speech, all of the unregistered voters will be able to unscramble audibly and in correct order (at my prompting) the four randomly arranged steps into the correctly arranged steps in becoming a registered voter.”PERSUADEA successful persuasive speech will either help to change people's minds about an issue you feel strongly about, or even actuate them (change their behavior) in some way.If, for example, your purpose is to persuade X number of your audience members to register to vote in the upcoming election, you might bring registration forms with you to the speech and at some point during the speech have the unregistered voters fill out the applications right then and there. If you succeed in getting them to fill out the applications, then you’ve given the best kind of speech.INSPIREIn ancient Greece, an inspirational speech was labeled "epideictic," which was a speech of either praise or blame. Delivered on a special day in the life of country—a holiday such as the Fourth of July in America, for example, the speaker wanted to inspire his audience to feel the same way he did regarding something in the culture of his day which was either praiseworthy or blameworthy.Think of an epideictic speech as an inspirational speech in which the speaker gets his audience to recommit themselves to a value they hold dear. If, for example, the value is "basic human rights in the world," the speaker might praise the individuals and organizations who have had success in negotiating the release of political prisoners in totalitarian states around the world.By the same token, however, the same speaker could choose to inveigh against totalitarian states around the world for their intolerance toward dissent, free speech, religious freedom, and so on. Or, sticking with our speech about voter registration, an epideictic speaker might choose to praise the privilege democratic societies have in voting in free elections. By the same token, however, the same speaker could choose to blame registered voters who absent themselves from the polls on election day for their apathy and lack of civic mindedness.The “best” kind of epideictic speech would elicit the speaker’s planned-for reaction from her audience, which might be applauding, cheering, shouting words of agreement, or booing the persons or the values which are abhorrent to both speaker and audience.ENTERTAINSuccess in this mode of speaking is obvious and relatively easy to evaluate by asking, “Is my audience entertained?” For example, are my attempts as a speaker to inject humor into my presentation rewarded by laughter from my audience? Do my audience members hang on my very words as I spin a tale or share an anecdote and then reward my efforts with pin-drop silence? If so, chances are you’ve given your “best speech.”In conclusion, the best kind of speech is one in which the speaker’s purpose has been accomplished, at least to some extent. Obviously, the criteria for judging a speech’s success will vary from country to country and culture to culture, so speakers need to be well informed and adaptable when addressing either a highly diverse audience or an audience whose reaction to—and expectation of—being informed, persuaded, inspired, or entertained is at odds with the speaker’s desire and purpose to inform, persuade, inspire, or entertain.

Science writing is less accessible to students in reading comprehension and rhetoric/composition classes than literature, personal essays, and famous speeches are.In order to fully understand good or useful scientific writing, you must have a strong foundation in the relevant sciences. At this point, understanding persuasive science writing becomes a case of evaluating specialist knowledge. At this point, you run the risk of turning the class into a discussion about science, when you really should be focusing on comprehension or composition. For literature, there is no necessary specialist knowledge above or outside the comprehension or rhetoric skills you are learning. This allows the class to focus on the writer's arguments and to evaluate the degree to which their rhetoric contributes to the argument. If you were looking at scientific writing, you would always be able to undercut such a discussion by talking about "the facts." In today's AP English Composition and Literature classes, none of the works discussed are about "facts" at all-- they're mostly personal essays, opinion pieces, rousing speeches, novels, and other works which make obvious or subtle arguments about human experience or nonspecialist life philosophies. By directing students to study written works which do not concern objective truth, you help them see rhetoric in its purest form, and teach them a lot about the power of persuasion.Also, your question assumes that most students would actually find science writing useful and "not boring." Science writing is for specialists, by specialists. This is not good material to introduce high-school students to, unless they've already decided to specialize and are in some kind of magnet school for science. Real scientific papers not only do not include the full range of composition and rhetoric elements taught in today's literature and composition classes, but are probably totally inaccessible to most of today's students... unless we're talking about persuasive pop-science books, which would be an acceptable choice for study but which would run the risk of teaching students inexact things about science, which is something you probably want to avoid.I'm not saying that it is not worth teaching high-schoolers how to read journal articles, but that this should be taught in the context of science classes. Science writing is too inaccessible and too narrow to use for general rhetoric and composition education.