Depending on which party you prefer, speeches during the Democratic and Republican conventions are either dazzling or disgusting. But politics aside, I find many of them illuminating and worth study because they are often written by the best speech writers in the business.

Supposedly, Michelle Obama wrote her own speech delivered Monday night at the Democratic convention. Even so, I’m sure there was plenty of input from the professionals. Two things in that speech stood out for me, lessons that I try to emulate myself as well as convey to my clients: using concrete examples and telling anecdotes.

Rather than just claiming Barack helped people on the streets of Chicago, Michelle made it come alive with specifics, “setting up job training to get people back to work and after school programs to keep kids safe — working block by block to help people lift up their families.”

She didn’t just speak in generalities about the spirit of people in America, but instead talked about “People who work the day shift, kiss their kids goodnight, and head out for the night shift — without disappointment, without regret — that goodnight kiss a reminder of everything they’re working for. The military families who say grace each night with an empty seat at the table. The servicemen and women who love this country so much, they leave those they love most to defend it.”

Obama personalized the speech and told brief anecdotes about her father who had muscular dystrophy as well as remembering the first speech she heard Barack give.

On Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton gave what was probably one of the most difficult speeches of her career, trying to assuage those who voted for while satisfying everyone else that she showed enough support for Obama. Again, politics aside, I think it was a well-written speech with specifics, anecdotes, humor and interesting uses of language.

For me, the Harriet Tubman story about helping slaves on the underground railroad was very effective, especially because of its repeated phrase: keep going, keep going, keep going.

Another well constructed part of speech used the repetition of “more” and “less:”

“But we don’t need four more years … of the last eight years. More economic stagnation … and less affordable health care. More high gas prices … and less alternative energy. More jobs getting shipped overseas … and fewer jobs created here. More skyrocketing debt … home foreclosures … and mounting bills that are crushing our middle class families. More war … less diplomacy. More of a government where the privileged come first … and everyone else comes last.”

A couple of clever things I also liked: the sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits and the play on the Republicans’ convention site: “With an agenda like that, it makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities. Because these days they’re awfully hard to tell apart.”

And then the best line in the speech: “I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?”

Of course we all know that delivery is a critical piece of any speech. I thought both women did well, using gestures, inflection and pausing. Without actually witnessing it ourselves, we can’t imagine what it’s like to speak to an audience of 20,000. You could tell by the way Hillary carried herself on the stage that she was the most experienced at speaking to large audiences.

Can’t wait to hear Bill Clinton and then the Republicans.

Many analysts are saying Maple Leaf Foods of Canada has done a good job of responding to a deadly outbreak of listeria bacteria linked to its products, one PR expert even comparing it to Johnson and Johnson’s response to the Tylenol crisis.

At least four people have died and dozens of others have gotten sick. The company did the right thing by voluntarily expanding the recall from two types of cold cuts to include 220 products made in its Toronto plant. In addition, the CEO Michael McCain, stepped forward with a candid and sincere apology in newspapers and TV. (However, he could have been coached on how to be less stiff and wooden while reading the TelePrompter.)

“We have an unwavering commitment to keeping your food safe with standards well beyond regulatory requirements, but this week our best efforts failed and we are deeply sorry,” McCain said. “Tragically our products have been linked to illnesses and loss of life. To those families, I offer my deepest sympathies.”

At a news conference, McCain adroitly pushed aside questions about monetary concerns. “This isn’t about money. It is about public health and that is why we have expanded our recall … the last people I am listening to are lawyers and accountants.”

Unfortunately the accountants, or at least Maple Leaf Foods’ CFO, wasn’t listening to McCain. Here’s what Michael Vels was telling analysts. “Maple Leaf products have not been directly linked to illness and death.”

In another part of his statement, Vels expressed a positive company message, but buried it inside overwhelmingly negative language. “Damage control and financial minimization at a time like this has not even been considered,” he said. “Certainly as an investor that may not be what you want to hear, but 100 percent of our actions and focus over the weekend has been to notify consumers and ensure our products are returned.”

Geez, get the guy media training or rein him in!

I don’t think many of us (myself included) really understand how much the media landscape has changed and just how quickly news—especially bad—takes on a life of its own. Two positive PR responses to this new media stand out from the last couple of weeks.

First is Circuit City’s recovery from its first reaction to a spoof of the company in Mad Magazine called “Sucker City”. A Circuit City operations employee (who knows what that means or how far up he/she is in the organization) saw the parody, didn’t get the joke, and ordered Mad removed from any stores that carried it.

Obviously, the PR person wasn’t in the loop (which shows an organizational “need for improvement”) because any savvy professional would understand that the employee’s action would just fuel the fire—which of course it did.

The destructive overreaction did just the opposite of what the employee wanted. It increased exposure of the parody on the internet — to Mad Magazine’s glee. Finally the PR guy, Jim Babb, found out what was going on and came up with the perfect response. He sent an apology letter—with his own dose of humor—to the Mad folks. An excerpt:

• “As a gesture of our apology and deep respect for the folks at MAD Magazine, we are creating a cross-departmental task force to study the importance of humor in the corporate workplace and expect the resulting Powerpoint presentation to top out at least 300 pages, chock full of charts, graphs and company action plans. In addition, I have offered to send the MAD Magazine Editor a $20.00 Circuit City Gift Card, toward the purchase of a Nintendo Wii….if he can find one!”

Issue defused, case closed (except for us PR watchers).

Meanwhile, Netflix experienced a major “technology glitch.” For three long days it couldn’t ship DVDs to its subscribers. But rather than reacting like Circuit City, Netflix got ahead of the looming crisis by posting an apology on its website and sending customers emails so they found out about the problem first from the company rather than through some website.

The icing on the cake: a 15% discount on their monthly bill for those affected by the problem. The result: Netflix’s stock actually went up!

It’s nice to end the week on a happy note…

John Edwards attributed his affair with Rielle Hunter to feelings of being special. During the heady days of campaigning he said he “became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic.” (That sounds like a good reason for the $200 haircut, too.)

I guess he also became really forgetful and stupid. After all, this is the man who in 1999 said about Bill Clinton, “He has shown a remarkable disrespect for his office, for the moral dimensions of leadership, for his precious daughter. It is breathtaking to me the level to which that disrespect has risen.”

Obviously, Edwards, like Clinton thought he would never get caught. But Clinton strayed in a different time. In these days of cell phone cameras around every corner and paparazzi hiding behind every bush, it’s very unlikely that someone running for President of the United States can get away with jaywalking, let alone having an affair.

In that respect, Edwards’ dalliance is breathtakingly arrogant (not to mention callous toward his wife who, at the time, was in remission from breast cancer). It’s the old “it will never happen to me” even though it’s been the downfall of dozens of politicians before him.

Making matters worse is Edwards’ breaking every PR rule with his constant denial of the affair after it was revealed by the National Enquirer. Apparently he still thought he could get away with it!

And now it’s come to a very predictable conclusion: the humble mea culpa on national television and another disgraced official who is political dead meat. As Joanne Ciulla, an ethics expert at the University of Richmond told USA Today, “Americans can put up with infidelity, but hypocrisy is a career-ender.”

In August, 2007, Bob Murray wouldn’t shut up. Now, a year later, on the anniversary of the catastrophic collapse of his Crandall Canyon mine, when we’d really like to hear from him, he’s not talking.

Hours after six of his miners were trapped underground (and ultimately killed), Mr. Blame and Bluster passed the buck by claiming an earthquake caused the massive cave-in, despite the fact that seismologists found no evidence of a quake. When reporters asked tough questions, he accused them of being lackeys for the United Mine Workers. Finally, someone got the hook, and since then, not a peep out of him.

Now we know why. The results of the investigation aren’t pretty. Federal officials said there was no other mining disaster in the last 50 years to compare to the one at Crandall Canyon. The Mine Safety and Health Administration said the mine was “destined to fail” because of a risky plan. MSHA itself was faulted for its lack of oversight before the collapse and for its poor handling afterwards of a rescue operation that killed three rescuers.

In an editorial today entitled Greed Above, Death Below, the New York Times called for a criminal inquiry into the disaster because mine operators blatantly ignored and concealed danger warnings before the collapse, and because they mined beyond safety limits.

Too late, though, for the nine men killed because of a company’s greed and a regulator who looked the other way. Last August when he was pointing fingers at everyone but himself, Bob Murray had to know what really caused the disaster. No wonder he’s not talking.