Specifics In Speeches Let's Get Concrete

post from TPMCafe on 07 August 2008 04:17:00 PM. © TPMCafe

Thanks to Andrei for a great post. He really put his finger on an issue that I think is central to understanding Barack Obama's political ascendancy:

"This is not to say that Obama lacks substance or has not delivered enough wonky policy speeches. Neither is close to the case. However, his poetic call to renewal on caucus night made clear that he was making an argument in this presidential race, not just presenting a laundry list. Where most Democratic presidential candidates seem to be running for head of government, Barack Obama is running for head of state. That's why their speeches sound like a State of the Union; his sound like an inaugural address."

I couldn't agree more with this and only wish I had written it myself! One of the more interesting takeaways I had from researching my book was the extent to which presidential candidates rarely got into the specifics of policy issues.

When FDR ran for President in 1932 he pledged a New Deal to the American people, but only tepidly ran on a liberal political agenda, instead focusing his message of political change on the notion of bold, persistent experimentation. When Eisenhower said "I shall go to Korea" he didn't actually say what he would do once he got there or how he planned to end the Korean War.

When JFK spoke of a New Frontier he didn't precisely tell Americans the route he would take. (In fact, when I interviewed Ted Sorensen for the book, one of the things he told me was that the campaign purposely avoided talking too much about policy issues for fear that it would be divisive. Kennedy went out of his way to talk in poetry not prose). In 1968, Richard Nixon was elected President, in part because he had a secret plan for ending the war in Vietnam.

As countless successful politicians have shown, ambiguous change is often more effective than change explicitly defined and voters are more likely to respond, as Andrei puts it to "values and national goals." Those are the essential themes of a great campaign speech.

Until 1992 and Bill Clinton's political wonkfest politicians spent most of their time on the stump laying out their visions for America and an affirmative case for their candidacy rather than getting into the minutiae of policy detail. I think it's something that Democrats tend to forget; campaign rhetoric is not a State of the Union. It's much more about energizing and motivating voters, and speaking in broad tones, rather than offering them 10-point plans. It's much closer to the way voters think about politics, especially on the campaign trail.

It's one of the reasons why Obama has been successful in places where other Democrats have failed. No speech ever given by John Kerry or Al Gore ever brought tears to your eyes or made you well up in pride about America (not from lack of effort by Andrei I'm sure). It's not because they didn't love their country or have a stirring vision for America, it's because, for whatever reason, they decided that wasn't what voters wanted to hear from their elected leaders.

Unfortunately, they were wrong and Barack Obama's has helped to prove why rhetoric and ideas matter on the campaign trail - and why Democrats should have the confidence to lay out their patriotic and affirmative vision for America.