This is one of those “essays I fear to write.” I fear that those who are passionate admirers of President Trump will take umbrage at my notes about his recent speech at CPAC; and that those who are appalled at the mere mention of his name, will be even angrier at me than they usually are — as in this essay I treat him seriously as a Presidential candidate.
As many know, I used to be a political consultant — for President Clinton’s re-election campaign in 1996, and for Vice President Gore’s 2000 Presidential campaign.
Before I was a consultant, I was a White House spouse; my then-husband was a speechwriter for both President Clinton and for Mrs Clinton. I became familiar, from an observer’s distance, with the intense cycle of Presidential speechwriting and revision.
Then I became a consultant, and a participant in observing the speechwriting process myself.
Though I signed NDAs, and thus can’t discuss the details of my work for either campaign, I can speak generally about what I learned; about what can be helpful for a candidate for the Presidency, and about the common stumbling-blocks that face all candidates for that US office.
I also learned from both roles about the “message” process: the daunting task that a team of media specialists undertakes, of getting the press corp to cover what is actually in the speech — ideally focusing their stories on its policy centerpiece — rather than running stories that elide the speech altogether, to focus on some random “clickbait”.
(It was extraordinary to learn how often the national press corps simply does not report on the contents of a President’s or a candidate’s speeches, no matter how important, or even run a link to the transcript, but will rather run stories “about” the speech “occasion,” that are really about the audience, or a recent scandal, or a poll, or whatever the First Lady was wearing.)
For a speech by a US President or Presidential candidate to be successful — covered accurately in the media, the main points highlighted, and pushing the agenda or polls, and remembered positively by posterity — the message team must also follow certain methodologies in the production of the speech and its distribution to the press.
After that, the advance team — the people who execute the mechanics of the “Principal’s” appearance at a venue: prepare the green room; deliver the candidate physically; seat the press and VIPs; launch the music; light the stage; distribute press materials — must also take certain steps.
After all of this preparation, the candidate or the President him or herself must be disciplined in giving the speech, as a performance to a live crowd.
He or she must not yield to temptations to pander to the crowd, to extemporize in damaging ways, to go on too long in response to rapturous audience reactions, to pursue rabbit holes tangential to the momentum of the speech, or to take defensive swipes at critics.
This refusal to be tempted of course in all of these, and other, ways, and to stay, as we say, “on message”, is called, in that world, “message discipline.”
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In my role as visiting professor of rhetoric at George Washington University, where I taught the history of advocacy rhetoric, I learned what it was that made for great public speeches in Western history.
My findings from the research I did there combined with what I learned from the other roles I mentioned and confirmed that the elements of a great public speech in the West — and a great Presidential speech or campaign speech in America — are systematic and universal.
A great public speech in the West shares certain key attributes. By the same token, Presidential or Presidential candidates’ speeches fail, no matter what the “Principal’s” background, or political orientation, is – for similar reasons.
Briefly:
1/ Great public speeches must have a clear introduction. Within the first few paragraphs, the audience must know: what is this speech about? What is the thesis statement of this speaker? As they ask in Journalism 101: “Who What Where When?”
Here is 5th century BCE Athenian statesman Pericles’ great funeral oration, per Thucydides:
“I will speak first of our ancestors, for it is right and seemly that now, when we are lamenting the dead, a tribute should be paid to their memory. There has never been a time when they did not inhabit this land, which by their valor they will have handed down from generation to generation, and we have received from them a free state. But if they were worthy of praise, still more were our fathers, who added to their inheritance, and after many a struggle transmitted to us their sons this great empire. And we ourselves assembled here today, who are still most of us in the vigor of life, have carried the work of improvement further, and have richly endowed our city with all things, so that she is sufficient for herself both in peace and war. […] But before I praise the dead, I should like to point out by what principles of action we rose ~ to power, and under what institutions and through what manner of life our empire became great. […]
Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. Our government does not copy our neighbors’, but is an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while there exists equal justice to all and alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty an obstacle, but a man may benefit his country whatever the obscurity of his condition. […]. While we are thus unconstrained in our private business, a spirit of reverence pervades our public acts; we are prevented from doing wrong by respect for the authorities and for the laws, having a particular regard to those which are ordained for the protection of the injured as well as those unwritten laws which bring upon the transgressor of them the reprobation of the general sentiment […] Because of the greatness of our city the fruits of the whole earth flow in upon us; so that we enjoy the goods of other countries as freely as our own.”
From these two paragraphs, Pericles’ audience understood that while the occasion was funereal, the subject was Athenian democracy in relation to themselves — and its corollary, civic freedom.
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