Axelrod says he loves man-on-the-street interviews, and while digging through the tape the week before, he found one he did with a young Hispanic guy. “He gives you a — a sense of hope,” the young man says, squinting past the camera, swaying slightly. “Uh, at a time when, you know, things in this country are not going so well.” It’s a good message for Obama, and a good messenger, but what Axelrod likes are the stutters, the verbal hiccups: “That kind of authenticity is how you cut through.”

From the NYT Magazine's profile of David Axelrod, Barack Obama's political consultant.

I'm telling you, the days of glib fluency as political and social capital are over. Bush proved it. Ira Glass proved it. We prefer in speakers what we prefer in individual selves, and what people are hungry for now is connection to authenticity, spontaneity, and presence.