Last night public speaking aficionados were treated to a wonderful set of case studies from the last 3 candidates standing — how not to do it, why it did her in, and how to win.
First off was John McCain, who gave a bad reading of a terrible speech. Did his speechwriters put <SMILE> on the teleprompter at the end of each paragraph? He certainly smiled at weird and wonderful places, while delivering bad news and slams at his putative opponent, and lamely trying to distance himself from President Bush. He adopted a patronizing tone that served the coup de grace to Senator Clinton, managing to praise her campaign and make it sound like he was putting the little woman in her place at the same time.
More substantively, he took a lot of Senator Obama's ideas and prose and tried to use them against him. But the effect fell flat; it just didn't work to try to pin 'old ideas' on Obama, who is so transparently about something new. And on top of that, to steal Obama's tag line as his backdrop — I guess imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery. McCain appeared clueless, and he's desperately taking lessons from Obama in an effort to smarten up. He needs a different approach. This one cannot work.
Next up was Senator Clinton, and this was the saddest speech of the night. Clinton kept her smile plastered on the entire time, but the speech was a giveaway as to why the one-time front-runner didn't win.
It was all about her. She claimed that everyone wanted to know what she was going to do. Well, yes, we do want to know. But we expect her to show leadership at a tough moment, and that's exactly what she failed to do. She had a wonderful opportunity to exit gracefully and heal the party. Instead, she held out for a better deal. What a sad close to a determined campaign.
Finally, Senator Obama gave a decent speech that was rendered better by being all about the audience. He only once referred to himself, at the beginning, when he was talking about Grandma. Nice move. The rest of the speech was about the hopes and dreams of the audience, of America, and about…change we can believe in. This guy knows how to do it.
He could be even better if he used the right kind of specifics in key places in his speech, and he got personal in the right kind of ways. Has no one else noticed that, as good as he is, his speeches are a little impersonal? He needs to go back and read Churchill. Still, he's by far the best speaker on the U.S. political scene at the moment. If it comes down to speeches, my money is on Senator Obama.
Nick,
Thanks for the post. It has been a crazy campaign that has been especially instructive on the power of public speaking.
A lot of people have been throwing around the question of whether the next president needs to be eloquent or not.
In the past there has often been a conception of someone who is eloquent as “slippery:” a true rhetorician in the negative sense. This was usually compared to someone who was a “straight-talker,” someone who “tells it like it is.”
The conclusion I have come to is that this is a false dichotomy used for political purposes.
John McCain is definitely playing up this dichotomy, as did George W. Bush’s first campaign in 2000.
Instead of buying into this false dichotomy, I would say that the audience of a speech is a fairly good judge of character, whatever style it was given in.
As a public speaking coach / trainer, I present frequently and coach others on their presentations. Hence, I am constantly observing the interplay between presenters and audiences.
I find that most audiences form accurate general impressions of a speaker, though they may not be able to articulate the behaviors and techniques that led them to form that impression. After all, we’ve all spent a good portion of our lives gaging the truthfulness of the people with whom we interact.
In his book, “Strangers to Ourselves,” Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia notes that the brain can absorb about 11 million pieces of information a second, of which it can process about 40 consciously. The unconscious brain handles the rest.
Our unconscious brains are gathering up thousands of subtle signals from the speakers that we observe regularly and forming general impressions such as, “He’s lying.” or “She’s arrogant.”
I think that this helps to explain Obama’s incredible charisma and his amazing rise to the Democratic nominee: he comes across as human, authentic and competent.
In this election in particular, the President’s ability to inspire the American people is critical. Our economy is weakened, our federal debt is growing, and our national infrastructure (schools, roads, ****) is falling apart. The Iraq war is sapping our federal and state programs with it’s huge costs. Health care costs are soaring and beginning to cripple middle class Americans and small businesses. Climate change threatens the delicate balance of the ecosystem and our national dependence on oil has made us vulnerable to terrorist attack while funding the very nations that host the terrorists. Meanwhile, the good will we enjoyed after Sept. 11 has been completely squandered and our foreign polity is universally criticized or detested abroad.
The current president never asked Americans to sacrifice anything to pay for the war in Iraq. Now, we are beginning to pay the price because other programs have been neglected while the war has sucked up trillions of dollars.
Can one person solve all these problems and manufacture the political will to get things done? No. No president alone can do this. They need the support and participation of the entire nation, just as FDR needed the support of the American people throughout the Depression and WWII.
Who is the appropriate candidate to lead us forward? One who can inspire the American people to take part in the recovery of our nation. As JFK said:
“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
“This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.“
MLK Jr. said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
These were all just “words” … but what powerful words!
Our next president needs to speak the truth, tell us we need to participate, and inspire us with hope.
Who does that sound like but Barrack Obama?
Nick,
Thanks for the post. It has been a crazy campaign that has been especially instructive on the power of public speaking.
A lot of people have been throwing around the question of whether the next president needs to be eloquent or not.
In the past there has often been a conception of someone who is eloquent as “slippery:” a true rhetorician in the negative sense. This was usually compared to someone who was a “straight-talker,” someone who “tells it like it is.”
The conclusion I have come to is that this is a false dichotomy used for political purposes.
John McCain is definitely playing up this dichotomy, as did George W. Bush’s first campaign in 2000.
Instead of buying into this false dichotomy, I would say that the audience of a speech is a fairly good judge of character, whatever style it was given in.
As a public speaking coach / trainer, I present frequently and coach others on their presentations. Hence, I am constantly observing the interplay between presenters and audiences.
I find that most audiences form accurate general impressions of a speaker, though they may not be able to articulate the behaviors and techniques that led them to form that impression. After all, we’ve all spent a good portion of our lives gaging the truthfulness of the people with whom we interact.
In his book, “Strangers to Ourselves,” Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia notes that the brain can absorb about 11 million pieces of information a second, of which it can process about 40 consciously. The unconscious brain handles the rest.
Our unconscious brains are gathering up thousands of subtle signals from the speakers that we observe regularly and forming general impressions such as, “He’s lying.” or “She’s arrogant.”
I think that this helps to explain Obama’s incredible charisma and his amazing rise to the Democratic nominee: he comes across as human, authentic and competent.
In this election in particular, the President’s ability to inspire the American people is critical. Our economy is weakened, our federal debt is growing, and our national infrastructure (schools, roads, ****) is falling apart. The Iraq war is sapping our federal and state programs with it’s huge costs. Health care costs are soaring and beginning to cripple middle class Americans and small businesses. Climate change threatens the delicate balance of the ecosystem and our national dependence on oil has made us vulnerable to terrorist attack while funding the very nations that host the terrorists. Meanwhile, the good will we enjoyed after Sept. 11 has been completely squandered and our foreign polity is universally criticized or detested abroad.
The current president never asked Americans to sacrifice anything to pay for the war in Iraq. Now, we are beginning to pay the price because other programs have been neglected while the war has sucked up trillions of dollars.
Can one person solve all these problems and manufacture the political will to get things done? No. No president alone can do this. They need the support and participation of the entire nation, just as FDR needed the support of the American people throughout the Depression and WWII.
Who is the appropriate candidate to lead us forward? One who can inspire the American people to take part in the recovery of our nation. As JFK said:
“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
“This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.“
MLK Jr. said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
These were all just “words” … but what powerful words!
Our next president needs to speak the truth, tell us we need to participate, and inspire us with hope.
Who does that sound like but Barrack Obama?
Nick,
Yes, yes, and yes.
McCain has serious problems as a speaker, especially on television. His skin seems moist in the lights. When he smiles, we see the skull beneath the skin. His voice sounds teenagerish–thin and nasal, and his repeated use of, “My friends,” seems like a bad verbal tic, smarmy and insincere.
Hillary lacks ethos. Her ethical appeal has been undermined by her transparent ambition and her willingness to occasionally stretch the truth and pander to her audience. I turned against her when I heard her recall aloud that Robert Kennedy was murdered in June. There are too many crazies taking their cues from celebrities for that to be taken lightly.
Finally, to add to your praise of Obama, he has mastered the art of reading from a TelePrompter. He disguises the fact that he’s using two of them by moving his eyes away from the one on his right in mid-sentence, glancing only briefly at the one on the left, and then ending with his eyes on the audience.
He is also the master of the pause. I am struck by his similarity to Martin Luther King in this. Video recordings of King depict him as sometimes so fatigued that he speaks slowly in two ways. First, he elongates certain vowels, and second, he let’s silence ring–between phrases.
Obama does not elongate vowels, but he takes his time, and takes a breath between key phrases. Makes him seem in charge–gives him gravitas.
His infrequent use of the personal may weaken his rhetoric, but I think many of us feel that we know him anyway. He seems to be consistently and authentically himself.