When Cicero Spoke…
By Mitch Berg
Yesterday, in a thread about the South Carolina primary, commenter “Peevish” wrote in the midst of a tangent about Barack Obama’s appeal to voters…:
Obama, like Reagan, has an extraordinary oratory presence
Interesting point there.
I give speaker points. My father was a speech teacher; I’ve earned a living from speaking, and had it as a wonderfully-rewarding avocation for almost the past four years. Winston Churchill is one of my personal idols, if only for his talents as an orator. Like radio, oratory and communication are skills about which I am pretty remorselessly clinical; I’ll state my admiration for the politicians purely on their communications skills, leaving their actual policies and beliefs out of the mix (for the moment, anyway).
Bill Clinton, while a poor big-crowd orator, was wonderful at the up-close and personal stuff, and a master at the use of television. George W. Bush is famously bad at prepared oratory (although he’s had his moments), but is as good at off-the-cuff ad-libbing as anyone in the business. Paul Wellstone was an odd case; he could be a riveting speaker, as long as he didn’t let his emotions run away with him – then, he’d become a sputtering caricature that reminded one of the bastard love child of Benito Mussolini and Daffy Duck.
Obama is an excellent speaker. How excellent?
“Like Reagan?” Well, he’s good. Good enough to cajole mainstream Republicans to vote Democrat? We don’t know. So far, he’s spoken almost exclusively to friendly or benign audiences; campaign appearances, mostly.
Is he good enough to sell conservative values in a state that is, and has been for decades, fundamentally hostile to them? We don’t know – Obama has never been an executive.
Is he good enough to rally a nation behind a vision that goes against a congressional majority? We don’t know – he’s never been an executive. His (short) legislative career has focused on voting on other peoples’ stuff, not making an intractable mass of enemies tractable.
Good enough to rouse several nations full of slaves to hope for freedom, against not only the nations’ own governments and his own legislative opponents but elements of his own administration? We don’t know; Obama has never faced a situation anything like that.
Could Obama do any of these things – things at which Reagan excelled? Perhaps – but there’s nothing in the record to tell us one way or the other. It’s said when Cicero spoke people said, “Wow, what a wonderful speaker Cicero is,” but when Demosthenes spoke they said, “let’s go pants Phillip of Macedonia.” (or words to that effect).
Can Barack Obama get Democrats to come out and vote for him? Sure.
Can he get Republicans to go pants Philip of Macedonia?
As good a communicator as he is, that remains to be seen.
January 29th, 2008 at 8:46 am
The secret is in the pebbles. 😉
January 29th, 2008 at 8:52 am
The wife is a speech teacher also, but the kind you kid sees if they talk like angryclown past kindergarten.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Obama’s got “cool” – the kind you either have or you don’t. I don’t think you’ll ever see him lose it – he’s got an innate sense of cool confidence.
Is it going to be enough? Who knows – but it’s never going to hurt him. The choir he’s preaching to don’t need convincing, and the paste-headed “undecideds” will, at a minimum, not be dissuaded by his manner. He’s cool, confident, and clearly very poised and at-ease in public.
On CSPAN, in New Hampshire, someone planted in his audience during his speech started yelling about abortion – and he handled it easily, making the anti-abortion shouter look like a 3rd-grader having a tantrum.
Watching him with the Kennedy’s last night, he looked like he’d been sitting there on that stage with them all his life. He’s got confidence and cool – even a bit of half-assed star quality to him. I don’t like the guy’s positions or party or anything, and I’m impressed by the way he presents himself. His way of projecting will make him hell of a formidable opponent to anyone. The more I see of him, the more impressed I am.
The only Republican who has that kind of star-type vibe is Rudy – that obvious sense of superiority – of being “at home with the me”, as they’d say in Grosse Pointe Blank.
Watching Rudy last night, I was struck by his cool – and also that he was explaining his policies to reporters like it was the first time. He hasn’t campainged worth moose piss – and I’m finally starting to get the feeling that McCain might take it, after all.