Why is political oratory dead?

[David]

Everything must now be said briefly enough to fit a thirty second sound bite.

Are you aware that the great orator Edward Everett spoke for an hour at Gettysburg before Abraham Lincom made his brief Address? Who is remembered today? As Shakespeare said, "Brevity is the soul of wit."

My own experience as a public speaker over the last forty years is that I have three minutes to get my point across. In the first thirty seconds I must engage the audience's interest and then I must sell my issue in the next one hudred and fifty seconds. Abything logner and I lose them.

Why? Television. Video games. Social media. Everything today is done in sound bites, and there are alternatives to the entertainment the great speakers used to provide. That is also why it is harder to get a crowd out to a meeting, too. Times change. Oratory must change with it.