The Speech Givers: RNC Redux

As a variation on last week’s DNC program, here is a synopsis for three of the highest-profile speakers who were able to drop some science in the Twin Cities:

 

Mitt Romney—Right off the bat, Romney’s tirade against liberalism and Big Government caused my brow to furrow when he complained that for decades, “Washington has been looking to the eastern elites” for solutions.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Mitt Romney one of those eastern elites?  And since when does Big Government taxation become any more intrusive than Big Government saying that certain people cannot marry; that women cannot have control over their bodies; and that religion should be taught alongside science in schools?  Cognitive dissonance aside, liberal tyranny was the theme of Romney’s address-who then comically and unilaterally declared the Supreme Court of the past decade to be a liberal one, and condemned government handouts in the form of Medicaid and welfare (as if poor people were rolling in riches at the taxpayer’s expense).  Overall, it was an opportunity to rally the base and point out that economic and national security requires a limited government at home, and limited outside influence from despotic regimes.

Operative Quote:  “Liberals would replace opportunity with dependency on government largess. They grow government and raise taxes to put more people on Medicaid, to take work requirements out of welfare, and to grow the ranks of those who pay no taxes at all. Dependency is death to initiative, risk-taking and opportunity.”

Eloquence: B+  Effectiveness: B+ 

Sarah Palin—After laying low for the past week to let the media feverishly criticize her reputation and her family, the governoress came out swinging during primetime.  She shied away from outlining specific policy positions, instead choosing to assassinate the pundits and pollsters for doubting her sincerity. Palin touted her down-to-earth “hockey mom” credential yet again, musing that being “a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.”  This remark certainly did nothing to help the Republican Party overcome its image of wealth and whiteness—it dismissed Obama’s work in helping black and low-income residents in depressed communities to overcome legislative indifference as unimportant.  Furthermore, she complained about how the liberal elites would talk “about how bitterly [ordinary Americans] cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening;” in this case, there is some irony in recognizing that Palin, a member of the NRA and a supporter of teaching creationism in schools, fulfills the stereotype.  The only issues about which she ventured an opinion were: her desire to drill for more oil while still investing in renewable energy; the continuation of the Iraq conflict; and staunch opposition to higher taxes.  All of the above was bracketed by disparaging (though often witty) attacks on Obama’s campaign style and record, which consists solely of “buttons and banners, [or] self-designed presidential seals” bearing his name, rather than substantive laws.  Both McCain and Obama have desperately tried to only criticize each other on the basis of policy, but Palin seemed wholly comfortable in condemning Barack Obama’s “messiah” reputation.  Her speech may have proved that she was the best thing to happen in Alaska since the Iditarod, but she failed to convey how her “maverick” stance would be applied to the entrenched bureaucracy of Washington, D.C.

Operative Quote: “I’ve learned quickly, these past few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.  But here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion.  I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country.” 

Eloquence: B  Effectiveness: B+ 

John McCain—Throughout the campaign we have been asked to consider the different flavors of McCain: the Maverick, the Partisan, the Seven-Houses-Elitist, the Hothead, the War Hero.  But his speech introduced another John McCain that no one quite expected: the Conciliator.  Not only did he make very few attacks on Obama despite downplaying (or in some cases, distorting) the efficacy of his policy positions, but he mentioned his willingness to bring Democrats, Republicans, and independents into his administration.  McCain relied heavily on his biography as a war hero, but only to prove the point that service in any capacity is a virtue of democracy.  He emphasized the need for lower taxes as well as paid homage to the working man by noting that, “We’re going to help workers who’ve lost a job that won’t come back find a new one that won’t go away.”  (Unfortunately in saying this, he also claimed that Barack Obama was not interested at all at forming new industrial jobs, even though the Democrat has repeatedly championed renewable energy as a source for job creation.)  Also, he championed the need for better schools with accountable teachers; better foreign relations with accountable leadership; and a better (but lesser), accountable federal government.  All in all, if one was not knowledgeable about the ultra-conservatives’ grip on the Republican Party and McCain’s prior attempts to satisfy that faction, the bulk of his speech was very centrist, honest, and uncontestable.  Only two small incidents at the end diminished its quality: first, McCain roused the crowd by shouting for them to “Fight with me! Fight with me!”  Somehow, the image of thousands of white people, some of them in military uniform, cheering a leader who urged them onward to battle was somewhat unnerving.  And finally, before the balloons were dropped, a campy new anthem by John Rich called “Raising McCain” was played with these lyrics:

Well he got shot down in a Vietnam town
Fighting for the red, white and blue.
And they locked him up in the Hanoi Hilton
Thinking they could break him in two.

To me, that is crass exploitation of McCain’s war record and had no place in an upbeat country song, especially when he himself portrayed it so seriously.

Operative Quote: “If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you’re disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our armed forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier. Because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself. “

Eloquence: B+  Effectiveness: A-

The Speech Givers: DNC Redux II

This is the second part of my reaction to the important speeches of the convention.  Hopefully I will have time to perform a similar analysis next week for the RNC.

Hillary Clinton—Next to Barack Obama and her husband, Hillary’s speech was probably the most anticipated of both conventions, and she lived up to great expectations as best she could.  In a paean to the working class, she recounted the stories along the campaign trail of wounded Iraq veterans, single mothers, and people without healthcare to illustrate her commitment to improving the lives of ordinary Americans.   The audience clearly reacted to her fiery rhetoric when she urged America to “keep going,” and when she commended the women of the past who worked to allow Clinton to run in the first place.  She flippantly remarked, “no way, no how, no McCain,” and harangued John McCain for being out of touch with the reality of the American economy and being complicit that women are paid less than men; and the conventioneers were genuinely ecstatic.  Hopefully, those Hillary supporters who were still hell bent on taking out their frustration against Obama will take example from her gracious lead and put party before candidate, and nation before party.

Operative quote: “You taught me so much.  You made me laugh and yes, you even made me cry.  You allowed me to become part of your lives and you became part of mine.”

Speech rating: effectiveness: A-  eloquence: A-

Joe Biden—A tough talker who cherishes his family and who listens to ordinary Americans on the train ride home from the Capitol every night…it’s hard to top Biden’s street cred as an “average Joe.”  His son, Beau, clearly became emotional as he introduced his father—noting the car wreck which claimed his wife and daughter’s lives and a speech impediment that he overcame in his youth.  The vice-presidential candidate himself gave a stirring recognition of his father and mother, who taught him to get back up after being knocked down.  He spoke of economic security by saying, “work is about more than a paycheck.  It’s dignity. It’s respect.”   Overall, Biden showed that not only is he a committed partisan, but he has a wholly human side—a symbolically aloof congressional veteran with a father’s wisdom.  We’ll see how his emotionality plays out in the vice-presidential debate.

Operative quote: “These are not isolated discussions [of economic distress] among families down on their luck.  These are common stories among middle class people who worked hard their whole life, played by the rules on the promise that their tomorrows would be better than their yesterdays.  That promise is the promise of America.  It defines who we are as a people and now it’s in jeopardy.”

Speech rating: effectiveness: A-  eloquence: B

 

Barack Obama—Standing before faux Greek columns in a city one mile above the sea—a virtual acropolis, nay, Olympus from which to decree the law of the land—amongst tens of thousands of swarming fans, Barack Obama hit this speech out of the park (pun intended).  While not as unexpected as his oration about race in the twenty-first century, this speech combined all of Obama’s positive gifts: eloquence for those who adore his highfalutin optimism; declarations of his policy goals for those who say he lacks substance; acknowledgement of his own background for those who don’t know or don’t believe his American roots; and all of this carefully bracketed partisan assaults on the policies of Bush-McCain.  Apart from flowing praise of the hardy middle class and a call for families (and particularly fathers) to take a more active role in their children’s lives, Obama was able to abandon eloquence for energy, stating: it’s not that John McCain doesn’t care, just “John McCain doesn’t get it.”  And in response to attacks on his patriotism: “I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.”  The speech may ultimately be attacked as showy and too much of a spectacle to be taken seriously; but Obama was able to not only build the case for hope, but arouse confidence about his character.  Not only does he say beautiful things and have the gravitas of an experienced statesman, but he showed himself to be 100-percent American and, while recognizing that change is larger than just himself, seems ready to lead the movement for a better tomorrow.

Operative quote: “When Washington doesn’t work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it’s best to stop hoping, and settle for what you already know.  I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don’t fit the typical pedigree, and I haven’t spent my career in the halls of Washington.  But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me. It’s been about you.”

Speech rating: effectiveness: A  eloquence: A 

The Inadequacy of Hope: DNC Redux

      Never before in modern history have the essential differences between the two major American parties stood out in such striking contrast as they do today. Republican leaders not only have failed in material things, they have failed in national vision, because in disaster they have held out no hope, they have pointed out no path for the people below to climb back to places of security and of safety in our American life.

      Throughout the Nation, men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government of the last years look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth.

      On the farms, in the large metropolitan areas, in the smaller cities and in the villages, millions of our citizens cherish the hope that their old standards of living and of thought have not gone forever. Those millions cannot and shall not hope in vain.

            Those words, tone, and appeal to the working man could easily be attributed to Barack Obama.  Except the line that followed, “I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people,” gives away its true provenance: Franklin Roosevelt’s acceptance speech at the 1928 Democratic election.

            In an uncanny portent of today’s “message discipline,” Roosevelt physically encapsulated hope and change during the Depression: in an era before the stories of well-coached women, minorities, and blue collar men would take the stage to courageously recount their difficult lives, the Democrats had Roosevelt.  Crippled from polio, many Americans thought he had fully recovered the strength to walk; this was just an illusion, but it helped endear him to those who saw him as elitist.  Furthermore, Roosevelt flew in an airplane from New York to Chicago to accept the nomination at the close of the convention the day after it had been given to him—an unprecedented shirking of tradition in favor of the symbolism of getting lucid and getting down to business.

            Eighty years later, Barack Obama will accept the nomination under the auspices of his own success story; he will speak at a stadium in front of tens of thousands of people—an exercise in transparency and inclusion.  Throughout this campaign and especially the convention, we have been pressed to look toward the future for answers.  Mark Warner, the keynote speaker, thankfully chose not to constantly assail McCain and Bush for digging us into a hole, but used his credentials as a cell phone entrepreneur to reduce the issues to economic terms.  He extolled the virtues of bringing technology-based business to small towns, acknowledged the threat that China faces to the American economy, and linked affordable education and affordable healthcare to an increase in American productivity.  In fact, he referenced no less an authority on forward-thinking, technologically-driven improvement than Thomas Jefferson, himself governor of Virginia, who wrote,

      What, but education, has advanced us beyond the condition of our indigenous neighbors?  And what chains them to their present state of barbarism and wretchedness, but a bigoted veneration for the supposed superlative wisdom of their fathers, and the preposterous idea that they are to look backward for better things, and not forward, longing, as it should seem, to return to the days of eating acorns and roots, rather than indulge in the degeneracies of civilization?

            In other words, the same tune has been trumpeted for centuries: progress, hope, change…whatever you want to call it, reality trumps nostalgia.  But along the way, liberal outlook in realistically dealing with predicaments has been stigmatized by elites.  Conservatives smear notions of social progress as naïve and dangerous—dangerous because of cost and unknown consequences.  How exactly do they get away with this?  Especially once you consider that no act of government can have greater costs or unknown consequences than war, of which the current conservative administration has initiated two.

            By measure of common sense, any non-partisan observer should agree that this year ought to be one in which a Democratic candidate wins the presidency.  Not necessarily because the Democrats are that much better, but because Americans are worse off now than they were eight years ago.  Why, then, are the polls so close, and why are Republican fear tactics so effective?  Why is progress so imperative yet so frightening?

            It is somewhat baffling and shameful that liberalism—which at its core hopes to extend liberty and freedom to greater numbers of people—is regarded as something radical and unattainable.  Cynics might say that the elites who control the country would never endanger their economic interests by changing.  Sociologists might point out that the status quo as an institution is difficult to change in complex societies.  Physicists might muse that for every action there is an opposite reaction, and since America has historically operated with two parties, the liberal one must be countered by a conservative element.

            Still, if this convention has shown America anything thus far, it is that hope alone a President does not make.  The rabid supporters of Obama and Hillary will not win over the working man by cheerleading alone.  Rather than try to prove that change is good, the Dems need to make people fearful of not changing; that is to say, that the status quo will harm us as a nation.  Roosevelt did it in executing the New Deal; Jefferson did it by declaring independence from Britain.  Obama and the Democrats should vigorously make voters aware of the economic consequences of adopting an illiberal energy policy and the social chaos that would result from an unhealthy population.    Barack Obama has done well by not assassinating the character of John McCain as the Republicans have done to him; but fear as a tactic is still on the table, and conservatives have been using it effectively for years.

8/27

The ‘08 Bunch

    Although countless hours of news network time have been spent speculating on who the vice presidential picks will be for each candidate, there remain only a few weeks until the conventions and thus it is about time to find out for sure.  Here is a selective version of what the field looks like:

 

 

      As you can see, there is an unprecedented amount of estrogen and color among this year’s possibilities.  Let’s walk through what each person may bring to the ticket.

 

Democratic:

 

Hillary Clinton:

-pro: woman; has 35 years experience in politics; will mollify alienated “Hillary Dems”

-con: may overshadow Obama; brings a lot of baggage (Bill); Republicans hate her

 

Jim Webb:

-pro: Navy vet; cabinet official under Reagan; supports our troops; is a Southerner

-con: likes the job he already has

 

John Edwards:

-pro: wife’s cancer may endear him to voters; champions the working man

-con: may be too suave for the “rock star” Obama; possibly bangs women who aren’t his wife

 

Republican:

 

Condi Rice:

-pro: woman; black; experience in Washington; knowledge of state and foreign affairs

-con: may be “unpopular by association,” given her boss’s approval ratings

 

Mitt Romney:

-pro: New Englander; youthful and handsome; ran for president; fixed Massachusetts budget

-con: sucked at aforementioned presidential running; viewed as elitist and potentially not conservative enough

 

Bobby Jindal:

-pro: parents were immigrants; one of precious few non-white, ultra-conservative Republicans

-con: likes his job as governor

 

Up for grabs:

 

Ann B. Davis as “Alice”:

-pro: witty; can keep the White House kitchen spotless

-con: no discernable experience; soft on terrorism

 

7/28