that is, washington, adams, jefferson, madison, they didn t give speeches. right. they put out statements, long statements. they d be read. roosevelt masters the radio. kennedy, reagan television. how does the role of rhetoric change as the medium changes? is this the next great president have to be a twitter president? it becomes less important. it s one of the one of the conclusions you would take from the numbers. take the president s big speech in september, his big jobs speech. there is a whole flap of whether he would give in on the wednesday or the tuesday. 30 some million people watch that speech. it s a good number of people. it is a fraction of the country. it is much lower. there s a lot of doubt on this. year by year the audience, the average presidential speech is getting smaller because people have other choices. when fdr gave a fireside chat, there was no tv and there was nothing else on the radio. and when in the 1950s eisenhower or kennedy would come on and giv