I’ve listened to several speeches on TV tonight. One thing about speeches - it’s all in the delivery. While the content is vital, if the delivery is flawed, the message of the content doesn’t come through.
The first one was Huckabee’s “concession” speech. It was good, but it was too long and wordy. I didn’t notice him glance down at notes. He may have, but it wasn’t something that struck me as he spoke. He seemed to speak from the heart. He just had too much on his heart, I guess.
Then there was McCain’s “acceptance” speech. He won the Republican primary in New Hampshire, and yet his speech was robotic. He read it word-for-word. He looked up intermittently, but he obviously had not had a chance to read the speech prior to giving it. He looked down at his notes often and for long periods of time. He stumbled over some words - not because there were difficult words because he was unfamiliar with the text. He tried to make up for it by giving terrific smiles throughout. I really don’t think I’ve seen the man having some a winsome smile before. But that speech. It was totally forgettable because it’s impossible to give a heartfelt speech when you have to read it. The worst thing is that his attention to his notes totally distracted the listener from the content of the speech.
The third speech I listened to was Obama’s speech. Oh. My. Goodness. The man can speak! There wasn’t a single glance at notes. He spoke from his heart - and it was very convincing. No way in the world I would ever vote for a Democrat, but if I were a Democrat, then Obama could’ve convinced me. He knew all the right words to say and promises to make, and he spoke with conviction.
The last speech I listened to was Hillary’s. She was another note-reader. She managed to just glance at them, though. She didn’t read from them for long periods of time like McCain did. She made the speech seem personal despite the notes. It was a good speech, and it held my attention. My only “what!?” moment was when she said she found her own voice the past few days. You mean it was HER voice in previous speeches? That didn’t make sense to me.
RT pointed out that Hillary had a bunch of young people behind her during her speech. Smart tactic considering that it’s been in the news that younger voters lean towards Obama.
So here’s the speech scores according to TMS:
Best speech: Barack Obama
2nd Place: Tie: Mike Huckabee and Hillary Clinton
Last Place: John McCain
I like John McCain, but if he is going to do well, he MUST give better speeches than he did tonight. It was an opportunity to speech directly to millions of American voters. It was a prime opportunity, and yet he blew it.
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January 8th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
The ONLY thing Obama has going is his charm and elegance. His politics are scary to me. What he said tonight was scary to me.
I listened to him and thought that if I didn’t listen to his actual message it would be easy to be caught up in his enthusiasm. But his message is really awful. I bet a lot of people don’t hear it.
He would surrender our troops to the Iraqis and we would be sitting ducks for another attack from whoever would want to attack us.
Then again - he said he’d attack Pakistan - while criticizing Bush for going into Iraq. He backpedaled on that (in a previous speech) but that is what he said.
January 8th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Oh - and I agree - McCain did NOT do his best in the speech tonight. But I like what he says. He is tough and I believe he’d whoop up on anybody that messed with us. He has ALWAYS supported our military and that’s really important to me.