WP, pg1: Finding Political Strength in Power of Words; Oratory drives Obama's career, and questions

[DeepModem Mom]

Finding Political Strength in the Power of Words
Oratory Has Helped Drive Obama's Career -- and Critics' Questions
By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 26, 2008; A01


Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) addresses a rally at the University of Cincinnati Monday, Feb. 25, 2008, in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Rick Bowmer/AP)

The 2008 presidential campaign has witnessed the rise of a whole arsenal of new political weapons, including Internet fundraising and sophisticated microtargeting of voters. For Sen. Barack Obama, however, the most powerful weapon has been one of the oldest. Not since the days of the whistle-stop tour and the radio addresses that Franklin D. Roosevelt used to hone his message while governor of New York has a presidential candidate been propelled so much by the force of words, according to historians and experts on rhetoric.

Obama's emergence as the front-runner in the race for the Democratic nomination has become nearly as much a story of his speeches as of the candidate himself. He arrived on the national scene with his address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, his campaign's key turning points have nearly all involved speeches, and his supporters are eager for his election-night remarks nearly as much as for the vote totals. But his success as a speaker has also invited a new line of attack by his opponents. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), fighting to keep her candidacy alive, has sought to cast Obama (Ill.) as a kind of glib salesman, framing the choice before voters as "talk versus action." Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the likely Republican nominee, has picked up the attack, vowing to keep Americans from being "deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change."

Obama gave his rivals an opening to question his speechmaking recently when he borrowed a riff about the power of words that was used two years ago by Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick (D), a friend and informal adviser. But the episode also illustrated a basic fact about Obama's ever-evolving stump speech: It is replete with outside influences, from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. ("the fierce urgency of now") to Edith Childs, the councilwoman in Greenwood County, S.C., who inspired the "fired up, ready to go" chant that Obama used for months to end the speech. To his critics, these influences are proof that Obama's rhetoric is less original and inspired than his supporters believe. "If your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words," Clinton said in Thursday's debate in Texas. ". . . Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox."

To his admirers, this magpie-like tendency to pluck lines and ideas from here and there and meld them into a coherent whole is inherent to good speechwriting and part of what makes Obama effective on the stump. It has allowed him to adapt quickly to rivals' attacks, which he often absorbs into his remarks, parroting them and turning them to his advantage. It has also allowed him to keep his speeches fresh, a challenge in a campaign in which he has given two or three a day, on average, in addition to a dozen or so major televised addresses along the way. And by continually tweaking his pitch with new material, he gives the impression that he is thinking things through in front of his audiences, instead of reciting a rote speech....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/25/AR2008022503186_pf.html

[Major Hogwash]

1. I used to listen to JFK as a kid and think he was a good speaker. Later, I learned just how great

he really was. And I listened to MLK's speechs and found the same uplifting hope and motivating themes he spoke so well of. Some other people made good speeches, as well.

But, to hear Obama speak now of hope and a better future, after the 7 hellish years of Bush telling lies and repeating them, is like being freed from a prison of doom and gloom and neverending nightmares.

[papau]

4. those "left" ideas are per Obama"on the table"to trade for GOP love and changing the atmosphere kill

any "uplift" I get from his speeches - I know he will explain in a great speech why he could not get the Medicare like option in his health care passed - and likewise for all the rest.

I don't like the con.

[Major Hogwash]

6. Dude, you're full of something that is used to float balloons.

Float it somewhere else!

[loveangelc]

2. After 8 years of George Bush, hearing Obama's speaches are almost orgasmic for the nation.

[KittyWampus]

3. Bullshit, in REAL terms Obama's greatest strength and why he's winning is his organizing abilities

If he were all talk, that wouldn't just translate into people getting to the polls on election day.

He is an experienced organizer with professionals on his staff who've worked with Unions and community groups.

They are going into states across the country and TRAINING grassroots activists. They are leaving behind educated volunteers.

THIS is rebuilding the partry from the ground up.

[jasmine621]

5. Hillary had the ideas Obama is speaking about before he did.

If she had only voter "present" on the IWR she would be leading this race now.