"a great orator but a lousy convincer"

Not my words, but those of Steffen Schmidt, poli. sci. prof at Iowa State U.  That is a very interesting take, by the way, for several reasons, but not so much because Iowa is the land of the coveted caucuses. Rather, it is interesting for the fact that rhetoric (what orators are supposed to be good at) is classically defined as "the art of persuasion." Since convincing and persuading are essentially identical, what Schmidt seems to be saying is that the great orator in question is in fact lousy at what orators are supposed to be good at. So if the governing isn't there, and the great orator myth is showing itself to be the disappearing vapor that it is, that doesn't leave much.