It is too bad the Sophists are not around these days to offer insights into persuasive public speaking. One wonders if HBOified John Adams will fling his main man Cicero, with all his thoughts on rhetoric, into the public imagination. Some sorting out of rhetoric is in order this campaign season.
To be sure, some variations of talk versus action, youth versus experience, idealism versus realism, and so and so have been the contests of, well, maybe most political contests. But the attention to speech making—to Barack Obama’s speechmaking, by Hillary Clinton’s campaign—is a unique centerpiece this time around.
From the bits and pieces of talking points I hear, Obama’s opponents believe he is particularly gifted in the fifth of the old canons in rhetoric, actio; this being the final delivery of a speech. Without pulling up quotes, let’s just take agreed notice that we’ve plenty heard the dismissive: “he gives a good speech.” The criticism doesn’t really matter much unless you presume that abilities come at the detriment of other abilities. Such a presumption could mean Obama fails in other aspects of rhetoric, namely the inventio of a speech—coming up with an idea. Maybe the “he gives a good speech” criticism is meant to say Obama has no substance, no ideas, in those good speeches.
The other side to the criticisim is that, while Obama pulls off great speeches, a President is not the speechmaker in chief, but many more important things, like being the most experienced in chief. Such is the message conveyed in this, from Clinton’s speeches:
It’s time we move from good words to good works, from sound bites to sound solutions … We need to make a choice between speeches and solutions.
Amazing that a pitch against sound bites uses a triple play of political punnery to create a sound bite.
The reason this line is not working against Obama is at least two-fold.
First, there is no good argument being presented that Obama is unable to attain “solutions,” which I take to mean initiatives within Executive Branch agencies, Congressional votes for Democratic policy, retaining allies, and promoting U.S. interests abroad like not letting crazy states or organizations do US citizens real harm.
Simply saying Obama is unable to do these things doesn’t do the trick—the lack of a compelling argument as to why he can’t explains how a people to preoccupied with experience when voting up John Kerry over more charismatic speakers four years ago seem happy with Obama.
The reason Obama’s speeches are compelling to people does not rest on his eloquent delivery nor the starry eyes of his supporters. The fact is, as is the case with a lot of speeches that achieve delighted receptions, people like what the speaker says. Obama stuffs substance into his speeches that suggests a respect for the intelligence of his audience. The success of his speech on race at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia did not derive from a smooth presentation, but from the fact that he was intellectually candid. Refreshing, indeed, to hear a pivot from talking points.
Delivery does count for something as well—Obama’s delivery also achieves the sense of treating the audience as thinking beings that don’t go to bed each night repeating talking points to themselves. That, I increasingly think, is the real reason his speeches help him, and why attacking them hurts his opponents. People appreciate Obama precisely because they feel they are not pawns falling for one-liners.
So, fashioning one-liners to attack Obama’s candidacy is not the best solution to a second-place campaign.
