You campaign in poetry and you govern in prose.
A line attributed to Mario Cuomo. Hillary Clinton used it this year when the dazzling poetry of Obama’s oratory seemed to blind everyone to the thinness of his experience. Talk is cheap, she was saying, what about policy and record.
To which Obama came back with his ‘just words’ rejoinder where he cited great civil rights speeches and the Constitution and then asked, just words? Not bad. Then there was a flurry of controversy as to whether the ‘just words’ riff was someone else’s. And then the caravan rolled on some place else.
You can also campaign in prose and govern in prose, like Kevin Rudd.
His victory speech in 2007 stuck steadfastly to the material. The lines below capture the moment just as he is moving to the thrilling closure, the emotional climax. He attempts a few daring little thrusts in the upwards direction but, like everything that came before it, he is in the end careful to hammer down any nail of higher emotion that might stick up. Take that, enjoyment. Take that, light on the hill.
This is what happens when bureaucrats get the big chair, the microphone and the chance to deliver their own words….
Friends, history has given our generation the opportunity to shape a new future for this nation of ours, Australia.
Let us be the generation that seizes the opportunities of today to invest in the Australia of tomorrow.
That’s the mission statement we have as the next government of this country, but I want to do it by us all working together as one.
Tomorrow, and I say this to the team, we roll up our sleeves.
We’re ready for hard work.
We’re ready for the long haul.
You can have a strong cup of tea if you want in the meantime.
Even an iced Vo Vo on the way through.
But the celebration should stop there.
We have a job of work to do.
It’s time, friends, for us together as a nation to bind together to write this new page in our great nation’s history.
I thank the nation.
You could deconstruct this line by line and get particularly indignant at the ‘mission statement’, the ice vo vo, the binding of a page and so on. But its a task as deadening as the speech. I will just say that I reserve my most bitter hatred for the faux folksy construction of ‘We’ve got a job of work to do’.
A job of work.
He improved when he delivered his Sorry Day speech, the second big event of his premiership. The repeated ‘we say sorry’ at the end of successive lines was powerful and worked well, though he comes back to his ‘new page’ cliche inevitably. Bookish, perhaps.
He had goodwill on his side, deservedly, and a united party behind him. What was ultimately important to everyone was the occasion and the symbolism, not the content.
But as a speech – in phrasemaking and delivery – it did not best Brendan Nelson’s. Nelson’s speech contained many more nuanced ideas and a more balanced argument. His delivery had an emotional authenticity that Rudd could not achieve. Had he just had an editor to cut out the icky bits he would have done far better.
It will be fascinating to hear Obama’s speech should he win next week. As the times demand, it will be sober and it will lower expectations, and as his country demands, there will ‘greatest country on earth’ and God Bless y’all. There might well be a job of work to do, too.
But he is the greatest orator going around on the biggest stage. Hope Kev takes a tea break to tune in.
Posted by zukointheworld 
