Thus the idea that brainy, Harvard-educated Obama couldn’t actually mean it when he starts doing his “in’” for “-ing” and such. Surely, that kind of speech is stupid; he’s “playing dumb.” No. He is, like the Bushes and Bill, being a modern American. Gone are the days when the proper representation of that voice is that of a Disney announcer.

To be able to speak to modern America pretty much requires being able to switch between the formal and the vernacular to some extent. As archetypically “presidential” as Mitt Romney seemed, his perfectly square, gee whiz speech style was part of what did him in.

In today’s America, to not be able to get down, or at least pretend to, is to be inarticulate. We live in a distinctly swaggery age.

Obama, then, speaks a larger English than Romney – or Reagan, or Kennedy.