Whether you agree with his policies or not, you have to admit that our current President won the office in large part because of his ability to speak well.

A lot goes into speaking well. It’s a big topic. But one of the key ingredients is an appealing speaking voice.

Now, I’m NOT saying that President Obama has a PERFECT speaking voice. I’m sure most of us have a quibble here and there.

But compared to John McCain and Sarah Palin, Obama was a Caruso to their PeeWee Herman.

His sound is open and resonant, whereas both McCain and Palin have high-pitched nasal sounds.

Candidate Obama’s enunciation, for the most part, was crisp and professional. I say for the most part because he occasionally lapses into slangy sounds that, I suppose, are meant to make him sound folksy.

McCain and Palin, both impressive people, projected vocal images that were less Presidential. McCain sounded young, his squeaky tenor voice seeming less authoritative than Obama’s.

And Palin’s voice was a serious liability. Her resonance was squarely in the bones of her face and in her nose, and those sounds, coming from a strong-willed woman, are not likely to win the hearts and minds of men.

Vocal Presence is an interesting concept. It suggests that sound itself, independent from substance, can have a decisive effect on a voter’s decision to say, “Yes,” to a candidacy.

I would be interested to learn if in our history the candidate with the deeper, more masculine speaking voice was more likely to be elected.

I know it’s true about the taller candidate. If it were also true about the voice, than we would have known early in the primaries that Barack Obama was the favored candidate.

His voice speaks so loudly that it almost doesn’t matter what he says.

I just met a client, a young woman new to the work force and recently hired by a consulting firm, who had studied oratory and debating in high school. I don’t think I’ve ever had a client with similar experience in my 20 years working with speakers.

She had a remarkable ability to be still when standing in front of the crowd. Not just still on her feet, although she was good at that, but still in her composure. She had the ability to remain at rest even while projecting her ideas effectively.

When I suggested an alternative to the beginning of her talk, she responded with ease, using the approach in her own way and increasing the power and impact of her remarks.

She was the youngest person in the room, yet she had the most authority and stature.

If she’s as good at mastering the mountains of data required for success in her field as she is at the basic mechanics of communicating, she will go far.

I have high hopes she will give me some of the credit, while of course I will humbly deny any responsibility.

I have written an article called 5 Ways to Speak Like Obama on Bnet.com about President Obama’s abilities as a public speaker–saying that he is skilled at connecting with audiences, making the complex clear, and using his voice and body language to project confidence and authority.

The article has brought out opposing views.  Some of them seem to be opposed to Obama’s policies rather than his speaking skills, but others make good points.

They accuse him of simply being good at reading scripts on a TelePrompter.  I admire the President’s comfort with the TelePrompter, but some have said that this is no indication of oratorical skill or leadership ability.  Perhaps we could train a chimpanzee to use a TelePrompter, but we couldn’t train one to write Candidate Obama’s speech on race, or deliver it with such restrained passion.

Whatever you think of TelePrompters, they are tools that speakers must learn to use.  The President is not an actor who is given 4 weeks to learn his lines.  He gives dozens of talks a day and must use the tools at his disposal. 

On another front, many of the comments on the article on Bnet make the point that when President Obama goes off script, he says “er” and “uhm” a whole lot, and that does not inspire confidence.  At the same time, one or two commenters mention that his speaking skills are tools of deception, and that I am advocating that business speakers develop their ability to “seem” authentic, or “appear” confident and authoritative.

(Interesting that they fault the President for saying  “er” and “uhm” while at the same time fault him for being slick.)

While I agree that authenticity and genuineness are attractive traits, and that there is a thin line between “polished” and “slippery,”  I also know that nobody follows a weak trumpet. 

In a job that requires non-stop public speaking, a  good man with bad speaking skills will be less effective than a bad man with good speaking skills.

We as Americans want a leader who is ethical, smart enough to figure out how to solve our problems, and tough enough to get the job done.

And by the way, he better be a good speaker, too.