The presidential campaigns of Bob Dole and John Kerry had several things in common: they were veterans whose service apparently counted for little, they were personally unexciting, and they ran weak campaigns. There was one other common factor: both were fatally afflicted with the tendency to lapse into ‘Senate-ese.’ While candidates with executive experience (mostly governors) could address a problem directly, long-time Senators tended to wander off into legislative minutiae, and by the time they got around to answering a question, the listener had lost interest. With the benefit of hindsight, commentators told us that Senators like Dole and Kerry started the campaign with two strikes against them, because their speaking styles were formed in the Senate. Steve and Cokie Roberts wrote a little while ago about the cursed affliction, and how it hurt Hillary Clinton: