Lately, it has become common to compare Obama’s speaking abilities and popular appeal to Reagan’s. Its kind of tricky to judge the validity of this comparison. Most of Reagan’s famous speech’s happened after he was already President were as most of Obama’s speeches so far have happened on the campaign trail. You can’t really draw a fair comparison between the two types of speeches.

But there is one similarity between the two men. They both rose to prominence with a famous speech they gave at convention for another man. With Reagan it was a speech he gave at the convention that nominated Barry Goldwater called “A Time for Choosing.” With Obama, it was a speech that he gave at the convention that nominated Kerry called “The Audacity of Hope.”

In both cases, the candidate that they where supporting would go on to lose. But in both cases, the speech’s laid the groundwork for their personal future campaigns. This allows us to compare their speaking ability at a similar points in their careers.

So here is the closing portion of “A Time For Choosing”….

And here is the closing portion of “The Audacity of Hope”……