Obama's speech, reactions

The verdict from PM Carpenter on Obama's speech:

Tonight, Obama began his reelection campaign, aiming directly at the problem children, the Republican Party. That may sound like political par-for-the-course stuff, but for Obama it isn't. To me, he sounded rather done with the preposterous business of bipartisanship, at least with these particular boys and girls. No more. He aimed at the GOP's intransigence, its tedious hypocrisy, its do-nothingness and its deliberate defeatism. Obama cajoled and threatened. He essentially demanded all or nothing. He contrasted. He led.

A reaction from Erza Klein here; Althouse was unimpressed. Personally, I thought it lived up well to his reputation for polished oratory, despite the prevailing conservative sentiment that his powers of persuasion are overhyped and inflated. If this man is a poor orator, as many on the right have suggested, then I wonder what that makes Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry, whose abject lack of fluency and eloquence was palpable in the most recent debate. Although I don't suffer from the illusion that this was somehow a speech of post-partisan unity or some other rubbish, I do recognize wonderful charisma. This is a charismatic man.