There is a new disease in politics this fall.  Maybe it’s because the campaign has already gone on too long.  Maybe it’s because the two sides are polarized, and bitter – perhaps more than ever before.  (At any rate, since the last election.)  Maybe it’s because the gulf between our leaders in Washington, especially the Bush Administration, and the people, seems wider than ever. 

The disease is the admonishing finger and its use in public speaking.  It’s the first finger, and it’s the one your mother waggled at you when you were five and got caught stealing a cookie. 

“You shouldn’t do that,” Mom said, “you’ll spoil your dinner.”

All the candidates have fallen into this admonishing role.  Sarah Palin used it last night during her surprisingly bitter, surprisingly adept acceptance speech.  Obama used it during his rock-starry, stadium-filling acceptance speech.  So did Biden.  Both Clintons used it extensively last week during their speeches.  McCain uses it when he’s not just standing with his hands at his sides looking comatose.  (Someone should tell him a ‘stump speech’ means you stand on a stump and deliver a speech, not that you deliver one like a stump.)  Virtually all the Republican Former Candidates have used it during their consolation prize speeches. 

Here’s the problem.  We don’t like the gesture.  It reminds us of when we were five and naughty, not a place most of us want to go. 

It’s replaced the remote-control-mute-button gesture that Clinton made de rigueur during his campaigns, which itself replaced the slashing-finger-to-one-side gesture that Kennedy made famous during his campaigns.  Kennedy’s gesture became too phallic for the more self-aware 90s, and Clinton’s prophylactic gesture in replacement was too banal and bizarre, though many politicians used it for a long time.  

So it’s a tangled, awkward effort, the quest by politicians to find something to do with their hands while they’re bloviating.  They need to be able to emphasize forcefully, and they need to accomplish the gesture high enough up that it can be seen in the head-and-shoulders shot above the podium on TV.  What are they to do?

The first President Bush held his hands about a foot apart, chest high, and karate-chopped them downward in parallel.  It looked – and was – coached and fake.  So that’s not the answer.  But at least he had his palms open, a good idea in gesture language because it makes the audience feel that the speaker isn’t hiding something. 

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. got through the best speech of the 20th century without using his hands in any significant way until the end, when he raised one hand high over his hand to signal his passionate conclusion.  He, too, showed his open palm to the audience. 

Modern politicians should take a lesson from King and let strong, positive emotions dictate their hand gestures.  Gestures should evolve naturally from the passion underlying the message.  Mostly, the palms should be open, but that doesn’t prevent them from being forceful.  Just stop the scolding.  Don’t use the (admonishing) finger on  us.  We’re not voting for National Scold.  We’re looking for a leader.