User blog comment:Ichigostop/Enel's Weakness/@comment-3033934-20110310055207/@comment-3181121-20110310180532

Lightning and electricity are not the same thing. Lightning is an electric discharge, a phenomena of electricity but not electricity itself.

Electricity in its simplest form is atoms passing a charge to each other. When they can't pass a charge because there is an insulator (i.e. rubber) the flow gets disturbed and stops. That's how Luffy was able to hit Enel, because Enel's body is basically an electric charge, and this charge was interrupted by an insulating element, namely, Luffy's rubber.