A lot of successful politicians, like George W. Bush and Barack Obama, are talented at reading from a Teleprompter. But Bill Clinton—as the comparison between his Democratic Convention remarks as prepared and as delivered proves—doesn’t read from a Teleprompter: he converses with it. He talks back when it has omitted a crucial detail; he one-ups it when its rhetorical flourish is insufficient.

Part of the reason he talks back so much (nearly doubling the initial length of his speech, in this case) is that he likes the sound of his own voice. But there is something else: Clinton is such a master of rhetorical strategy—he commands such innate and reflexive mastery of what makes the spoken word resonate—that he cannot help but improve his speech as he gives it. He doesn’t ad lib in the sense that extras in a movie have a restaurant conversation. He improvises, in the sense that Miles Davis or Beethoven would come up with an enduring work of art on the spot.

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The Teleprompter has plenty of good detail, but Clinton’s brain is so densely pulsating with wonky elaboration that a few more bleed their way into the speech. (Health-care costs went up at “three times the rate of inflation for a decade”; in 2009, the G.D.P. shrank at an annualized nine per cent; excursions on interest rates and bipartisan coöperation in municipal government.)

The Teleprompter, well stocked by professionals, has a nice colloquial rhythm. But Clinton is such a natural at connecting with an audience that the folksy flourishes he adds are no match for the machine’s. (“You all got to listen carefully to this”; “It’s a real doozy”; “Did y’all watch their convention? I did”; “It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.”) When he puts in little asides—the “wait a minute”s and the “listen”s and the “honestly, let’s just think about it”s—he is evincing more than tics: he is deploying a sly strategy, giving off the slight illusion that the whole speech is extemporaneous.

Whenever the Teleprompter gives Clinton a list, he automatically embellishes it with rhythmic intensity by drawing out the parallel construction, proving that he is the better speechwriter. The Teleprompter tells him that Obama’s energy policy “will cut your gas bill in half, make us more energy independent, cut greenhouse-gas emissions, and add another five hundred thousand jobs.” But Clinton says, “It will cut your gas prices in half…. It will make us more energy independent. It will cut greenhouse-gas emission…”

President Obama “inherited a deeply damaged economy, put a floor under the crash, began the long, hard road to recovery,” the Teleprompter says. But Clinton tells us, “He inherited a deeply damaged economy. He put a floor under the crash. He began the long, hard road to recovery.” And so on.

Sometimes the Teleprompter is moving too rapidly for him, taking the dangerous risk that some passing nuance might not fully sink in to every head in the audience. So he slows the action and, at a critical juncture, makes it resonate with the audience by inserting a seemingly extraneous question and answer. “Why? Because” is his favorite way of seguing from point to point. The Teleprompter’s “which means” becomes Clinton’s “Now what does this mean? Think of it. It means…” The Teleprompter’s “coöperation works better; after all, nobody’s right all the time” becomes his “now why is this true? Why does coöperation work better than constant conflict? Because nobody’s right all the time.”

On a bit about Obama’s health-care law, the Teleprompter gives Clinton: “The Republicans call it ‘Obamacare’ and say it’s a government takeover of health care that they’ll repeal.” Clinton spits back:

The Republicans call it, derisively, “Obamacare.” They say it’s a government takeover of health care, a disaster, and that if we’ll just elect them they’ll repeal it.

That “derisively,” which underscores the point and clarifies it for anyone unfamiliar, is a good idea. The insertion of “a disaster” as the rhythmic fulcrum of the second sentence is an even better one. But the caustic irony of that “if we’ll just elect them”—that’s the kind of nuance that you could expect from a master speechwriter who has had days or weeks, not split seconds, to consider the best way of putting things.

Or consider the remark of the Teleprompter that “all of us are destined to live our lives between those two extremes.” Instead, Clinton gives: “And every one of us—every one of us and every one of them—we’re compelled to spend our fleeting lives between those two extremes.” Again, the slightly expanded echo he inserts on “everyone one of us,” (adding in the “us” and “them” distinction that will become important in the next bit), the poetry of “compelled to spend our fleeting lives”—these are the marks not of extemporaneity, one would think, but of something carefully planned.

Or consider this bit from the Teleprompter: “When times are tough, constant conflict may be good politics, but in the real world, cooperation works better.” Here’s Clinton:

When times are tough and people are frustrated, and angry, and hurting, and uncertain, the politics of constant conflict may be good, but what is good politics does not necessarily work in the real world. What works in the real world is cooperation. What works in the real world is cooperation—business and government, foundations and universities.

Here he has added wholesale, on the spot, not just one but two rhythmic listings—the first of which, in its rolling cascade of precise adjectives (“frustrated and angry and hurting and uncertain”), is itself a good bit of poetry.

The examples go on. Near the end, the Teleprompter tries its hand at some classic Clintonian “sincerity.” “I believe it with all my heart,” it says. But that doesn’t quite do it for Clinton, who subsitutes:

Folks, whether the American people believe what I just said or not may be the whole election. I just want you to know that I believe it. With all my heart, I believe it.

A sentiment so utterly and lip-bitingly Clintonian—a sincerity that works so unbelievably well, given all we know—that pulling it off is a kind of magic.

Photograph by Peter Zay/Democratic National Convention.

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