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Monday July 26, 2004 Volume VI Number 30
by Ken Kemp
’m
a soft touch for a good speech. Maybe it’s rooted in the growing up years,
listening to sermons – some of them barnstormers, many of them sleepers.
My dad remembered one of his favorite lines from the Lutheran minister he came to know in the first few years he was married to my mom. They attended a stuffy cathedral style church in the tree lined upscale community of Oak Park, complete with stained glass and missing only the flying buttresses of the Notre Dame Cathedral on the Seine River in Paris. (Come to think of it, they were married there.) While a bit smaller, it still looked like a European architectural marvel right in the heart of the residential community just outside the city of Chicago. Dad loved to quote their Norwegian Pastor who referred to his sermons as a weekly attempt to “pitch his verbal tents against the sands of time.”
A clever line.
Sometimes, words and phrases will do just that. They are so poignant, so illuminating, so potent that they lodge in the memory and withstand the erosion that inevitably comes with the passing of time. It’s one of those unfathomable benefits of the English language – the innumerable combination of words that provide infinite possibilities for expression. The poets, the novelists, the playwrights, the lyricists, the journalists, the speech writers have yet to exhaust the limitless ways in which language can be employed to stir us, inform us, persuade us, challenge us, infuriate us.
I took courses in speechmaking. I was barely nineteen the first time I was required to make a speech in front of a classroom of fellow students all armed with pens and pencils and critique sheets. They had read the chapters, too, just as I did. Chapters that laid out in pretty clear terms what made for a good, effective speech. Structure, style, manner, cadence, symmetry, all played a role. The professor, a mediocre speechmaker himself, made it pretty clear that a certain standard would be set for a passing grade. And when the time came for me to deliver my prepared remarks, I experienced the holy terror that keeps most of us in the audience – and off the stage.
I don’t know the source – but someone did the research, and concluded that the number one fear that grips most every human being who ever lived is not the fear of falling off a cliff or a bridge or out of the window of a skyscraper or the fear of being burned or buried alive, or drowning, or the fear of a shark attack. The number one fear shared by every man and woman throughout all of history is the fear of public speaking.
That fear hit me like an electric shock treatment that awful mid-morning my speech was scheduled. Every instinct told me to cut class. I wished I had dropped the course when I had the chance. As the minutes passed, and as I sat there waiting in dreadful anticipation, my mouth went dry. All the moisture in my body went to my armpits and my palms. My speech seemed so silly, so simple, so ordinary, I could predict with certainty the tepid reviews I would be forced to read from my peers who would sit there leering as I addressed them, making notes, checking boxes, and me up there, helpless, exposed, alone. The address was so completely forgettable, I can’t for the life of me even remember the subject of that speech, much less the content. What I remember most was the paralyzing fear.
Now in retrospect, having so often throughout my life found myself in front of a crowd making speeches, it is one of those little ironies I suppose I’ll never fully reconcile. That first attempt was such a complete bust one would think I would never again give it another try. But something happened. Somewhere along the way, I got past the self-conscious fear (though it haunts me still). You see, on the other side of fear, I’ve also experienced those incredible moments when the words flow, the ideas take shape, and the people tune in. They aren’t filling in critique sheets, they are tracking with you. Together, you unpack the truth. You peel back the layers, and make fresh discoveries. You find common ground. You laugh out loud. You embrace the moment, together. You are moved to tears. You affirm new levels of commitment. Deeper understanding. Greater resolve. It’s heady stuff. And once you’ve been there, you want to go back.
You develop an earnest appreciation for others who go there, too.
So I am the guy who listens to the Valedictorian on graduation day. And when the political conventions come around, I like to tune in to the speeches. Often, I find it to be an opportunity squandered by lesser lights who just can’t seem to rise to the occasion. But then again, some of them are just plain inspiring.
* * * * * *
I’m not really inclined to overtly betray my political biases in LeaderFOCUS, though by now I suppose you can pretty well predict the essence of my political leanings. I know for a fact that I enjoy a fairly broad audience among my readers. Most of you have had an occasion or two to disagree entirely with something I’ve written. And you’ve let me know. You come from both ends of the political spectrum, assuming left and right are valid descriptors of the outer extremes. I like it that way.
Thanks to TIVO, I managed to catch most of the speeches of this week’s National Democratic Convention. (Some guys watch baseball. I watch speeches.) It was indeed a scripted convention, what with all the decisions made in advance. The Democrats were determined to present a unified, cohesive picture of themselves. Mindful of the charge that their challenge to the incumbent administration appears to be unpatriotic, the designers of the convention put special emphasis on patriotic themes. The Democrats love their country, too. So much so, that you may well wonder if the program cues didn’t come from George M. Cohan (Yankee Doodle Dandy) or John Philip Sousa.
I’m not so sure that the convention, with all it’s hoopla and revelry, changed many minds. It certainly reinforced and entrenched most of us. If you have a Michael Moore view of the world, your candidates gave you fuel for the journey. If you cringe at the manipulation and misrepresentations of Fahrenheit 9/11, and complain about the mindless acceptance of its premise by the masses, then you probably checked out of the coverage early on.
And isn’t it interesting that one’s view of a feature length “documentary” would be such an accurate litmus test? Maybe John Edward’s thesis is right – he likes to tell us that there are TWO Americas.
Perhaps it is a matter of expectations. I heard so much about John Edward’s charm and charisma and style, and his effectiveness in the courtroom before juries, that I fully believed Edwards would overshadow his new boss, Presidential Democrat Nominee, John Kerry. But he didn’t live up to those expectations. It was down home. It was personable. The people cheered. But it fell flat. Can that be done intentionally?
On the other hand, John Kerry exceeded expectations. He was direct. Energetic. He turned his phrases with style. When he was done, I concluded – we’ve got a contest.
Al Sharpton, who hasn’t done much to enhance the title “Reverend” was, perhaps, the most entertaining. I must confess, I laughed out loud when in answering the question raised by his political rivals, “Why do African Americans always vote Democrat?”, he referred back to Abraham Lincoln who, Sharpton said, “promised my people an acre of land and a mule” at the moment of their liberation. “Well…” Sharpton cried, “we never got that acre! And we never got that mule! That’s why we’ve been riding this DONKEY (i.e. the Democrat Party) ever since!”
But the surprise of the convention came in a young man from Illinois with a one-of-a-kind name. Barack Obama, the unopposed candidate for the United States Senate from the State of Illinois. He was the most articulate spokesman of all. He’s a Harvard Law School graduate, and while there served as editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Some politicians must deliver well written speeches that go way beyond the messenger’s ability. The words and phrases come from a superior league… it’s like a minor leaguer trying to hit a major league pitch. It’s painful to watch and listen as they plow through the ponderous sentences off the teleprompter. Others skillfully combine their own well honed thoughts with a delivery style that is full of passion, and comes from the heart. That was Obama. Agree or disagree, Obama is a force to be reckoned with.
E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.
Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America…
We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America… Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?
I’m not talking about blind optimism here - I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs. The hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores… The hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.
* * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
If you are a Democrat, you’d like me to be a little more supportive, and a little more combative about the purported Presidential misrepresentations and cherished alliances with evil corporate America.
If you are a Republican, you’d like me to rail against the inconsistencies of the Democrat message. (I’m inclined to do just that – to ask what it might look like for Michael Moore to produce an exposé on lawyers like Edwards who become mega-millionaires by exploiting the injuries of helpless individuals and drive the cost of insurance through the roof and open the door for managed health care to rule the universe. Or for Moore to perhaps do a short piece on an anti-war activist who built a career on trashing the sacrificial service of good hearted Americans in Southeast Asia and then re-invented himself as a decorated Patriot. A fighting man, protecting America. Don’t hold your breath. Moore’s capacity for docudrama is, well, selective.)
But I won’t go there.
I’d rather underscore the power of speech. The ability to persuade. To motivate. To challenge. To inspire. With your words.
You possess powerful tools.
Use them.
You can change the course of mighty rivers.
With your words.
Posted in Valley Center, California
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2004
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