MSNBC host Chris Matthews said President Obama lacked the key political skill of being able to engage and earn the loyalty of other politicians "one-on-one" on Tuesday's Morning Joe:
MATTHEWS: I'll tell you Obama's shortcoming and it's quite bipartisan an assessment, exactly what you would say, I think. Usually politicians take a while to develop a public speaking manner to where they are really good at it. It took Churchill a long time, he had a stutter and all kinds of problems as Joe and you guys now, and he developed a great speaking pattern. Jack Kennedy was never a good speaker until around 1960 where he was gangbusters. He really developed a public persona. All that time, in those 15 years in Kennedy's case and Roosevelt and all those people, they were developing the back room skills, the one-on-one skills, how you make friends, how you become class president, how you establish the loyalty of people one-on-one. The key political asset is the ability to sit in a room with four or five other people and have them accept your leadership. You know that, Nicolle, on either side of the party. Obama doesn't have that. He had the speaking skill way ahead of schedule, the inspiration ability, the charisma if you will, way ahead of schedule. What he has never developed is a love, and that's the right word for it, of politics, and love of other politicians, to love to sit around and play cards with them, to try to get to know them, their nuances, how to get to them, their hooks, their triggers, their buttons. Get to know them, figure out how you can work with some of them, even tough customers like Eric Cantor, and Larry McCarthy and Boehner and get to know the Tea Party sentiment, and try to figure out what it is you can give them.