Being able to give a good speech is merit when the goal is to select a leader.

Strongly disagree, in the age of teleprompters and speech writers this is a major part of campaigns (because of TV) but hardly matters at all for actual governing. Our excessive focus on it is not helping us select better leaders.

I used to think that, before 2016. Apparently, incoherent rambling is also a successful strategy.

Initial debates usually feature all serious candidates anyhow. Advertisement aka propaganda draws a line for me.