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| SFReader Forums > The Real World > World Events > Candidates who can speak...where are you? | Forum Quick Jump
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Frank
Adept
      
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 630
| Posted 7/18/2007 7:45 AM (GMT -5) |   | | It seems to me that in the past we had some great orators involved in politics. Where are the great orators of the present? Is it too much to ask for a candidate who not only sounds intelligent but actually has some real talent for public speaking? None of these bozos has any charisma at all, and certainly none of them sound sincere. I'm of very average intelligence, with no useful education at all, yet I cannot, for the life of me, point out a single candidate who strikes me as smarter than myself--a situation that is laughable, frustrating, and frightening all at once. | | Back to Top | | |
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Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 630
| Posted 7/18/2007 3:42 PM (GMT -5) | | Obama sounds to me like he's just saying what people want to hear, what people expect a man in his position to stand for, and he strikes me as a little too good to be true. He's dreaming anyway if he thinks Americans will elect a person of racial minority to the presidency in 2008. 2050 maybe, but not now.
And don't even get me started on Hillary... | | Back to Top | | |
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Bill Ward
Biblioholic
Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1738
| Posted 7/18/2007 4:23 PM (GMT -5) | | I've recently read an interesting book that treats with this subject as part of the larger linguistic trend in the english speaking world away from a 'high' culture or refinement in speech toward 'authenticity.' Its by John McWhorter and is called Doing Our Own Thing, I highly recommend it.
Many cultures still love language for its own sake, and a higher premium is placed on speech and oration in those socieities. Unfortunately that is not the case in our own, any longer, where the line between the formal and informal has been eradicated. This is not neccessarily a completley bad thing, but it has destroyed any expectations that a public figure should speak or behave a certain way, or that language is something to be valued for its own sake.
There once was a time when a hungry and tired farm boy gone off to war wrote letters home to his family that where superior to what most supposedly educated people could craft today, superior even to work produced by people who earn a living as writers in many fields.
I suspect the last good public orators in politics were probably also the last to write their own speeches. Today, you have speech writers who are just as bland and 'paint by the numbers' as the poll-obsessed policy makers themselves. | | Back to Top | | |
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Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 630
| Posted 7/19/2007 11:22 AM (GMT -5) | | That sounds like a really interesting book. Thanks for the recommend.
Concerning changes in the way the public views language:
I don't really expect any contemporary candidates to sound like Lincoln or Roosevelt or even Kennedy, but wouldn't it be great to hear them speak sincerely, and in some ways more humbly--meaning I'd like to hear them say how we might build a better society together, not how they alone will accomplish it. Forget all the empty promises and the flapdoodle they're asked to spew about specific issues. Talk to me from the heart about the America you envision. We all know that we can do better, so start doing it already! And I'd love to hear some candidates talk like they've actually got some brains. I know some of them are at least as smart as the average college graduate, yet I'm better at speaking to crowds than they are, and I'm just a lazy nobody who sits in his little shop and surfs the net. | | Back to Top | | |
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Bill Ward
Biblioholic
Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1738
| Posted 7/19/2007 11:59 AM (GMT -5) | | | I agree, but honesty doesn't pay in politics anymore, if it ever did. The strategy now is to offend as few people as possible while undermining your opponent; it seems to me that instead of aiming to win most candidates aim to make the other guy lose. | | Back to Top | | |
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MichaelEhart
Sage
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 2352
| Posted 7/19/2007 12:24 PM (GMT -5) | | | It is the looking backwards rule--- all that we remember is the good stuff. I have spent over 30 years very active in politics, and I can tell you that there are still great speakers and still great speeches among the dross. Same as always!
It is like classic movies--- we have the entire catalog of over a century to choose from, without remembering that during the "golden age" each studio made 50 films a year, mostly forgettable crap. If just 10% of those movies were good, that means a whole lot of "classic" films for us to ooh and ahh over and wonder why they don't make 'em like they used to.
Your complaint is timeless, by the way. William Jennings Bryan's (certainly regarded as one of the nation's greatest orators) acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination 1908 was hailed by critics and columnists as the greatest speech of the century, yet three days later one of the same columnists admitted he couldn't remember a single thing that Bryan had said.
Another issue is that the old-time guys had to give a ton of speeches. Campaigning involved going from town to town, making 10-20 speeches a day to tiny crowds, rather than one speech to a TV camera. This seriously honed the skills of the speechmaker, and at the same time hammered out the contaminating crap of the the candiate's stump speech. By the time the candidate got to larger forums he had honed that particular stumper to perfection.
"His stamina was evident from his schedule. In a typical day he gave four hour-long speeches and shorter talks that added up to six hours of speaking. At an average rate of 175 words a minute, he turned out 63,000 words, enough to fill 52 columns of a newspaper. (No paper printed more than a column or two.) In Wisconsin, he once made 12 speeches in 15 hours. [3]." Modern speeches are telecast or transcribed, and so can't be hammered out in that fashion, as each speech is "disposable". The quality of the speech then becomes more the responsiblity of the speechwriting team, who have to get it right the first time.
Great political speakers I have seen; Wesley Clark, Richard Nixon (who sucked on TV, but was great live), Barak Obama, Shirley Chisolm, Darcy Burner. There are many others.
Believe me, there were plenty of civil war letters home that were of the "Deer Mam, I am doing grate, hope all is well to the homested, (signed) Sonny." They just don't make the collections.
"The Stars by Law, Forbidden", Unparalleled Journeys II, November 2007 "Darkling I Listen; and for Many a Time" , Fear and Trembling, coming soon!
"The Scarlet Colored Beast" The Sword Review, October 2007
"Nothing But Our Tears" The Sword Review. September 2007
"Weaving Spiders Come Not Here" The Sword Review, August 2007
"The View From the Shotglass Floor" Ray Gun Revival, Feb 2007
"Six Zombies Doing That Mick Jagger Strut" Damned in Dixie, July 2007
"The Death of Number 23" Dark Krypt, Fall 2006
"Servant of the Manthycore" Sword Review, July 2007
"Voice of the Spoiler" Sword Review, June 2007
"Dancing with the Elder Gods"-- Thirteen Magazine, October 2005
"It's a Living" Byzarium---November 2005
"An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" The Sword Review, October 2005
Host, 2005 Nebula Awards Live Chat, sff.net
http://mehart.blogspot.com/ | | Back to Top | | |
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Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 630
| Posted 7/19/2007 1:00 PM (GMT -5) | | | It's just so frustrating for me that, from what I've heard so far, I can improvise better speeches than they're reading, and I can do it three minutes after waking up from a short night's sleep with nothing in me but a glass of orange juice. | | Back to Top | | |
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Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 630
| Posted 7/20/2007 2:05 PM (GMT -5) | | | Funny you should say that, Jeff. During the 2004 campaign I thought Cheney was the only one of the final four (Bush/Cheney & Kerry/Edwards) who was truely well-spoken, though I didn't agree with his politics I definately got the impression that he had some brains behind his voice and he never sounded like he was reading from cue cards. | | Back to Top | | |
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