Say It Like You Mean It

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www.ipa.org.au14 IPA Review | December 2010

A midst the torrent o explanations devoted to thedown all o Kevin Rudd, one issue cannot beescaped: i he had been a better orator hed mostlikely still be prime minister.

Having become Labor leader and then prime ministerby pitching himsel beyond the Labor caucus to the truebelievers on the Australian Le t, Rudd not only ailed to keephis ollowers inspired, he seemed to go out o his way tode ate them, starting with his plea on the very night o hisvictory or us all to calm down and have a cup o tea and anIced Vo Vo.

I wasnt the only one to nd it depressing and dispiriting. Tere were alternatives. For instance, having achievedthe goal hed set himsel -o climbing rom Everest basecamp to government in under a year-he could have toldthe watching millions that Labor had just planted the ago progress on the top o the very highest summit. Imaginethe roar it would have received, and the energy it would havegenerated.

ime a ter time, Rudd was warned by senior commentators and his own supporters to drop his long winded,technocratic speaking style. Te low point came when aneditorial in Te Australian gave him nought out o ten ordelivery or an address to the National Press Club and told

him to peer beyond the lectern tothe glazed looks in the audienceand to do something about it.

But Rudd ploughed on untilthere was no one le t listening-which

was a shame, because he actually had alot le t to say.

And there lies an irony, because KevinRudd will be remembered mainly or a greatspeech: his upli ting apology to the stolen generations.It made him loved as ew prime ministers be ore him. Withmore consistency o e ort and style he may have held on tohis ollowers and still be living in the Lodge.

Tis makes Kevin Rudds tragic demise Exhibit One inmy de ence o oratory. I believe that to rescue our democracy

rom the slow strangulation o boredom we need betterpolitical speech making. Te era o politics dominated by managerialism-in which timid politicians bore us withendless discussion o process-cannot go on.

Here are Exhibits wo, Tree and Four: Barack Obama,Sarah Palin and David Cameron.

Just a little over six years ago Obama was a littleknown member o the Illinois state legislature. Ten adramatic speech which electri ed the 2004 DemocraticConvention brought him to the attention o the world.

Against his inspiring oratory, the calculated triangulationo the establishments pre erred candidate, Hilary RodhamClinton, seemed enervating and cynical. Te rest, as they say,is history making.

o counter Obamas oratory, and re up its own base,

Dennis Glover is a freelance speechwriter and has worked for several federal Labor leaders. His book Te Art o Great Speeches and Why We Remember Tem is published by Cambridge University Press, RRP $39.95.

Say itlike youmean itA good speech can make or break a politicalcareer. And Kevin Rudds inability to communicateefectively should be a warning to all aspiringpoliticians explains Dennis Glover.


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www.ipa.org.au 15IPA Review | December 2010 Newspix


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the Republican machine chose a littleknown governor o a little regardedstate to be the slightly dismal JohnMcCains running mate. Her name

was Sarah Palin, and history recordsthat she took a great speech written

or her by George W Bushs oldspeechwriter and smashed it out o the park. Her ea Party movement

has changed American politics, whichmeans it may change the world.

Meanwhile in the UnitedKingdom in 2005, having repeatedly

ailed to nd someone charismaticenough to take on the charming

ony Blair, the Conservative Party was meeting to elect its new leader. An unknown outsider, consideredtoo liberal to lead the party o Margaret Tatcher, stepped ontothe stage at the ory nominatingconvention and spoke brilliantly,courageously and word per ectly

or 17 minutes, completely withoutnotes or lectern- all to an absolutely astonished audience. His name wasDavid Cameron; he quickly becamethe leadership avourite and is nowpresiding over what may be a secondconservative economic revolution.

Te common thread in thesesuccess stories is oratory. UnlikeExhibit One, our Exhibits wo, Treeand Four had the courage to appealto the people using the weapon thathas been the decisive actor in politicssince the birth o democracy morethan 2500 years ago: well cra tedrhetoric.

Teir courage, however, was justtheir starting point. Reading Obamas,Palins and Camerons speeches-or better still, watching them on

You ube- you will notice something

else: they are the masters andmistresses o technique. Teir speechesare packed with rhetorical devicesin the orm o schemes and tropesthat the Roman orator Cicero alsoused and that his Greek predecessorscategorized or us: speaking in threes(tricolon); beginning sentences withthe same word (anaphora) or endingthem with the same word (epiphora);

joining long lists with conjunctions( polysyndeton) or omitting theconjunctions altogether (asyndeton);asking rhetorical questions (erotema)and answering them (anthypophora);

juxtaposing contrasting ideals(antithesis ); and so on. Tese turnmere sentences into a orm o prosepoetry that attracts the ear. Te mostcon dent speechmakers like thesealso liberally use metaphors, tellstories, employ ridicule, and makepower ul appeals to our emotionsusing principles like courage andpatriotism.

How many o these techniques,or instance can you detect in

the ollowing great passages romObamas and Palins 2004 and 2008convention addresses?

theres not a liberal America and a conservative America theres the UnitedStates o America. Teres nota black America and white

America and Latino Americaand Asian America; theresthe United States o America.Te pundits like to slice anddice our country into RedStates and Blue States; RedStates or Republicans, Blue

States or Democrats. But Ivegot news or them, too. We worship an awesome God inthe Blue States, and we dontlike ederal agents pokingaround our libraries in theRed States. We coach LittleLeague in the Blue States andhave gay riends in the Red

But Ruddploughed onuntil there was no oneleft listening which wasa shame,because heactually had a lot

left to say.

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argument where Gore talks about his

old Harvard pro essor Roger Reveille;his sons near death in a car accident,and his sister dying o lung cancer-in a amily that made its living romgrowing tobacco. Tese are in the

lm or a reason speechwriters willimmediately recognize: they helphumanize him. Hes a disciple, witha wise mentor; a ather who wants tobequeath his son a sa e uture; a lovingbrother able to see the errors o his

amilys way and own up to his mistakes.

Tis makes him the sort o person we wish we could be- the ragile hero on amission- and there ore someone weremore inclined to listen to and believethan the aux alpha male who gotdestroyed by Bush. Te Greeks calledthis appeal to character ethos. You willnote also Gores highly e ective useo acts in his movie length speech-

including the cherry picker he uses to

reach the point on the graph at whichthe world begins its ecological deathspiral. Again, depending on your view,it is either hyperbole, or sheer genius.Guggenheim knew that this positiveprojection o Gores character andthe judicious use o interesting acts

were the secret rhetorical ingredientsneeded to make an OK speech into aglobal phenomenon.

All this is important whetheryoure a believer in global warming

or not, because what cant be deniedby either believers or sceptics is themovies political success. Its hardly anexaggeration to say that the rst greatliberal cause o the twenty rst century took o because a ailed politicianlearned how to make people listen to

what he had to say. Perhaps the greatestcompliment o all to the e ectiveness

o the speech comes rom those whodenounced it as pure rhetoric.

I we go back 20, 30 and 40 yearsto the great liberal conservative causeo the previous century - the de eato communism and the triumpho liberal capitalism- we nd thatrhetoric played a great role in thatstruggle too. In that extended ght,

John F Kennedy, Ronald Reagan andMargaret Tatcher - speechmakers

who could project belie and courageand get others to ollow them- becomeExhibits Six, Seven and Eight in thecase or oratory. Te rst implored usto ask not in the struggle or reedom;the second implored Mr Gorbachevto tear down a wall; the third told usthat even in the darkest moment, she

wasnt or turning. All three in actemployed classical technique to do so(to give them their names, they are, inorder): antemetabole, apostrophe andparonomasia.

In other words, a good speechcan both make careers and change the

world, or good or ill. Its DNA consists o rules, but this DNA can only come to li e when it is charged withbelie and passion.

Why is it important or you toknow this? Because i you care aboutpolitics, you can do something aboutit. You are Exhibit Nine and youraudience is Exhibit en, in my case. In

act, as an engaged citizen its your duty to do something about it. Whether youare an elected politician, a candidate

or ofce, an executive member o your local branch, or a member o thatmuch misunderstood class o politicaladvisers, think tankers or assortedpolitical pro essionals, you need to getbetter at speaking or speechwriting.

And i youre an audience member, who simply cant take it any more, youneed to demand that our political classgets better at speaking to you.

With that argument and evidence,I rest my case. Te rest is up to you.

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Say It Like You Mean It