An ageing Biden and Dubya have also occupied that office and they don't exactly strike me as "master persuader" types either.

Nobody is accusing Trump of lacking ambition or charisma, and there's also no doubt the party machine that backed him is pretty sophisticated. But there's a difference between being a "master persuader" able to convince almost anyone of almost anything and being a shameless braggart in front of an electorate that's unusually impressed by a celebrity's overconfidence and wealth and is a lot less shameless about appealing to their chauvinistic attitudes than predecessors.