Hillary Clinton has been making a distinction between "speeches" (Barack Obama) and "solutions" (her). She implies that these are contradictory, that eloquence somehow contradicts practical solutions.

Of course she would like us to believe that, for obvious reasons.

Mrs. Clinton has been a strong candidate and might be a good president, but her most moving moment so far has been when, tired from campaigning, she almost wept in New Hampshire.

MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews, who has heard so many political speeches that he must be rubberized, has told us that he has been thrilled to the point of experiencing physical sensations while listening to Mr. Obama.

For many of our most effective presidents, eloquence has been an important source of their power. One thinks of Ronald Reagan, Jack Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt. Eloquence enlisted support and yes, hope, which were part of their power to achieve goals.

In a recent book "Lincoln's Sword," Douglas L. Wilson showed how Abraham Lincoln's words were his "sword," and, as the saying goes, the pen is mightier than the sword. Consider the care Lincoln took with his words, beginning with his first Inaugural Address.

On March 4, 1861, Lincoln wanted to urge the Southern states not to secede. His future Secretary of State William Seward submitted this sentence, which Lincoln then turned into one of the most famous passages in American oratory:

The mystic chords which proceeding from so many battlefields and so many patriot graves pass through all the hearts and all the hearths in this broad continent of ours will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation.

Not bad. Seward certainly was an able writer.

But Lincoln made much more of it, adding alliteration, changing "proceeding" to "stretching," changing "guardian angel of our nation" to the far superior "better angels of our nature," along with other careful touches:

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living hearth and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

"Over this broad land" is masterful, its inclusiveness suggesting union. Lincoln was gifted; he had studied the King James Bible, Shakespeare and, very importantly, Walt Whitman, memorizing passages from "Leaves of Grass," responding to its rhythms and vast inclusiveness.

Mr. Obama's eloquence is part of his demonstrated power, as Mrs. Clinton has reason to know. And it will be part of his power if he is elected president -- to move the American people, and through them our Congress, and also to speak convincingly about America to the world.