Andrew Malcolm has an article on Investor’s Business Daily today, discussing Governor Palin’s ability to connect with people and crowds who gather to listen to her deliver a speech:

She has the ability to speak about issues that profoundly bother the audience in common ways and words that listeners instantly recognize and wish they had thought to say just that way. Watch in the video below of her full CPAC speech for how this church-going mother of five mocks Obama’s Winning the Future program with an almost off-color aside. And prompts shared laughter, not shock.

She gets immense unspoken credit for withstanding an amazing amount of abuse and keeping on ticking. Palin punches have power, like her elbows beneath the basket in high school athletic days. One supporter said to me, as if it was the highest contemporary compliment possible, ”She fights like a girl!”

Most politicians these days talk to their audiences or, worse, at them. Even the Real Good Talker, who made his name on a 2004 convention speech and has been giving too many ever since. Governing is hard work. Campaigning is tiring, but much easier. So, he has been and will be campaigning, blaming others as usual.

Obama’s standard fundraiser remarks have become tired, repetitious collections of recited pleas for $upport that few would voluntarily pay $35.80 to hear, let alone $35,800 per plate.

Instead, instinctively Palin doesn’t speak at or to audiences. She speaks for them. She tells them what they’ve already accomplished through the tea party, for instance, and what they can accomplish this year and beyond if united. It’s empowering and invigorating, no longer burdened by the attacks of enemies, she need play no defense. The audience hears that she knows them and eagerly becomes hers. To criticize Sarah is to criticize them.

It’s a refreshing phenomenon to watch politically when compared to the current bipartisan cast of characters trying to communicate publicly in this presidential election year. Fascinating, as on either side the ones who are running aren’t connecting. The one who isn’t, is.

Excerpting Palin speeches loses the flow, the knitting together of her thoughts with the audience’s. Even television filters the electricity of listening in the same room. The best we can do for now is provide her full speech on video.

P.S. After his CPAC speech, Santorum and clan walked off the stage. After theirs, Romney and Gingrich stepped down to shake hands with front-row members for a few minutes. Good moves.

After hers, Palin got a standing ovation. She waved for two minutes then plunged into the audience. Moving slowly like a mini-mob from one side of the vast ballroom to the other to accommodate the waves of well-wishers with hands outstretched and cellphones poised. Some sections spontaneously sang ‘Happy Birthday’ for her. And she was thrilled every time.

Sarah Palin did this for the better part of another hour, longer actually than her speech. TV was oblivious, the crews coiling their wires to go home as she continued shaking and touching hands on the ballroom floor below.

You can read the entire piece here.