Glenden BrownQuick Hit: Big Names at the Republican Convention
Laura Bush: She didn’t used to be this cloying did she?
George W. Bush: Mercifully short - and he managed to keep the SMIRK to a minimum. (It was, unsurprisingly, an entirely self serving speech. But there was a great clip we can use against McCain.)
Fred Thompson: Lots of grimaces. Overly long, uneven speech, only good delivery was recounting McCain’s POW days. Thompson’s “folksy” style was absent, replaced by a poorly paced speech with weird pauses. Thompson needs his Law and Order writers back.
Between Bush and Thompson is was like an old vaudeville act - Smirk and Grimace.
Listening to Holy Joe Lieberman was actually physically painful. How in the name FDR’s ghost did this grim and grinning man ever have any standing in the Democratic party? Lieberman’s appearance at the Republican convention should seal his fate as a politician and I hope Ned Lamont runs in four years and kicks his smarmy ass.
Compared to the soaring rhetoric from Denver, St. Paul has a funereal quality - maybe it’s the pitch black stage. I was also amazed that the Rs keep acting as if everything is fine - when four out of five Americans think we’re on the wrong track. That is making them look out of touch.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:02 am
I agree with some of what you said, but I thought that Thompson’s speech was pretty powerful. Nobody has matched the caliber of Michelle and Barck Obama’s speeches yet, but I think you’re being a little harsh.
I may have missed it, but did you critique the democrat speakers in the same way? Until you do you lack credibility as a speech analyst…sorry.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:14 am
Matt, Matt, Matty, Matt. You obviously missed it.
Thompson’s speech was, for the most part, poorly delivered - except when he recounted McCain’s POW days. He kept taking these weird pauses that broke up his delivery- every time he changed his focus he all but stopped. It may have been a teleprompter problem.
Dubya has never been a gifted speaker.
And Joe Lieberman is just annoying - although his northeastern accent is fun.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:44 am
It was bizarre. No policy proposals, no mention of the most recent Bush administration except briefly from Laura.
The attacks on Obama weren’t as vicious as you might expect, except for Fred Thompson’s claim that Obama is in favor of infanticide.
According to McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, the bulk of Obama smears are scheduled for tonight.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Hey Glen(den),
I guess I was focusing more on the content than the delivery. I thought Thompson’s speech would probably appeal very much to the audience he was trying to reach. Now that I think about it, while I was watching Obama I was paying more attention to his delivery style–because it’s talked about so much–than the content of his speech. Honestly, I remember really liking his deliver but remember little about what he said now. I wonder if others do the same. Maybe Obama is so good at speaking that it distracts from his message, at least for the average person like me.
So do you think Obama’s speech was perfect or do you have any criticism at all?
matt
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Matt - Overall Obama’s speech was strong - there were a couple points I thought he kind of stumbled over his words. It wasn’t quite the full-throated progressive speech I’d hoped for but it was a huge improvement over the past.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Speaking of delivery, I forgot just how much of a deer-in-the-headlights look Laura Bush portrays when she speaks publicly. Man, was her chat pathetic, or what?
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Albert - I don’t know that I’ve ever paid much attention to Laura Bush as a speaker but she did have a wide-eyed “please just let me get through this without incident” look on her face when she spoke last night
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I’ll definitely agree with you on Mrs. Bush’s delivery, she kept stumbling which distracted me from her message. I guess my question is this: does the average American care if a person stumbles over their words a little bit or do they listen more to content? I’m guessing that if a speaker doesn’t make any huge mistakes and is generally interesting, then the average person doesn’t notice at all what the speaking style is like. If I’m right, then the message and overall presentation of the person is most important. If it’s all about style and delivery, then how in the world did Bush win twice?
P.S. Thanks for a good discussion rather than only bashing the Republicans.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I don’t know if the average person gives tremendous weight to delivery. We all know it’s important but we also know not everyone is a gifted public speaker. I’ve done enough public speaking to know that sometimes your tongue just gets tied up while you’re trying to speak. Sometimes you just stumble over your words - I’ve also heard that using a teleprompter is real gift - not everyone is able to use them with equal skill. In All Too Human, Stephanopolous told a story of loading the wrong speech into the teleprompter and Clinton doing the speech from memory while they tried to load the right one. (Actually, in all fairness, I’m not a huge fan of Bill Clinton’s delivery - when she’s “on” I prefer Hillary as a speaker to Bill, but she’s less consistent.)
I think most people expect our politicians and public officials to have a minimum level of competency when speaking, an ability to deliver a speech well but also to communicate core ideas and concerns. I’ve long been amazed at how many people have accepted George W’s verbal inelegance a “just plain folks” characteristic when that image is so at odds with his actual upbringing and life experience. But even that - from the intentional mispronunciation of terms like nuclear, to the poor delivery - is an intentional public speaking style designed to communicate an idea in and of itself that is (I hate this term) a meta-message.
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Very interesting, and I agree with what you said. For me, giving a written speech well is fairly natural; my problem is speaking impromptu or without more than notes or an outline. That’s one of the challenges of a debate, and I’ll be interested to see how the candidates fair with that.
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I believe it was Rove that told Fox, he thought Liebermann might be in line for Secretary of State if McCain wins. More than likely McCain will have some position available for him.
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Yes, Richard, I’m sure McCain would reward his good buddy Lieberman with a cherry position in his administration. Too bad McCain won’t be there to help him out though, because surely the Democrats have a position waiting for Joe as well . . . waterboy.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Obama’s speech was excellent. I just wish he’d drop the “McCain said you’re not rich unless you make $5 million a year” talking point. It was a joke for hell’s sake. Clearly McCain did not mean it when he said it, he even predicted that it would be taken out of context. If that’s the best Democrats can do then we’ve sunk to the level of Rove.
Grandpa Fred did okay I thought. As far as his content, I guess lying in the face of Republicans isn’t a big deal anymore . . .
Joe’s biggest mistake was asking for applause after delivering his first big “line”. Kerry and Bill had a good time making fun of his “Alf-ness” on Radio from Hell this morning.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Glenden– found a picture that captures the excitement of the GOP convention. Hope you like it.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Matt:
Sorry for calling you an asshole previously, but it was all in fun and after all, when somebody new comes on the blog named “just and holy”… Well, I think you get my drift.
Anyway, you made the statement here:
The question that’s been eating at my sole, since I grew up in Utah and considered the people here to be hard working and pleasant before the “Republican Revolution”, (takeover/theft), is this: How did Bush supposedly get 72% of the vote here after four years of the worst governance in world history?
I know lifelong Republicans who wouldn’t have voted for him that time if you gave them a thousand dollars. They would have voted for Jane Fonda first. How did his popularity go UP in 2004?
Do you trust our secret, corporately privatized voting system here?
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I think the system is fine overall. In 2004, I was brand new to politics. I didn’t know if I identified more with democrats, republicans, liberals, conservatives, etc. My layman’s impression was that Bush seemed like a decent, family-oriented guy with sound principles, but it didn’t seem to me that he communicated well or that he was the best man for the job for the next 4 years.
The problem for me, and many others I assume, was that John Kerry didn’t seem like a better alternative. He seemed arrogant to me and like he didn’t know what he was doing either. Today, I’m still not a big Bush fan, or McCain, or Obama. To get back to the discussion topic though, back in 2004 I was more concerned with the issues overall than the candidates’ presentation ability. I didn’t think either Kerry or Bush were the best communicators, but in the end I chose Bush because I felt like the parties principles aligned more with mine. I think as we become more familiar with the issues and where we stand we begin to focus mostly on presentation (or if they’re Muslim or their 17 year-old daughter is pregnant) rather than the issues because we might already think we’d never vote for someone in the other party. But I think the average person, if I was average in 2004, worries more about issues than presentation style, though presentation is still important. Ok, I’m done.
P.S.–I understand that justandholy sounds pretentious; it’s not describing me, just my blog
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:05 pm
I’m glad you’re not mad at me for calling you out on that moniker, because I had no idea where you were really coming from. Personally, I think our voting system is terrible. I’ll bet if the voting machine corporations were run by democrats instead of republicans, you wouldn’t like the fact that the computer code is secret and the paper printouts will never be used to determine even a close election. If I’m wrong, and you wouldn’t mind that, I think you are very naive about what people will do to stay in power.
Enjoy your youth while you can!