When Your Best Speech is Your Concession, What's Wrong?

John McCain's concession speech was by far his best of the campaign. He was, convincing, generous, and passionate. It brought to mind Hillary Clinton's concession speech last summer, which was also widely heralded as her best.

What is it with these politicians that the can only give a good speech after they have lost?

American politician note-to-self: Note to American politicians: ask yourself if your best speech will be your concession. If the answer is yes, then you have a problem.

That might sound funny, but I am serious. If the only time you can actually speak from your heart is when you have lost, then why are you running? What good are you doing anyone, including yourself?

"This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs," McCain proclaimed. Why hadn't he said this during the campaign? Obama did the equivalent, over and over, when he routinely talked about McCain being a genuine war hero who should be recognized for his sacrifice.

After acknowledging the historic moment in race relations, McCain continued, "Whatever our differences, [Obama and I] are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that." This after a campaign in which the central talking point of McCain's campaign became Obama's alleged "association" with sixties radical Bill Ayers.

One could hardly miss the fact that in order to be gracious in defeat, McCain had to contradict much of his own campaign. Clinton's concession speech left her in the same dilemma: in order to be gracious in defeat, she had to contradict much of what she had said over the preceding months.

If Obama had lost either the nomination or the general election, he could have given a gracious concession speech without contradicting anything he had said during the campaign. One might counter by arguing that it is easy to be principled when you are the front runner. But Barack Obama entered this race not as a frontrunner but a long shot. In fact, much of Obama's extraordinary rise to prominence was rooted in his self-evident commitment to politics that are principled in this sense. A sizable chunk of the American electorate responded to that in a powerful way.

This would be a good measure with which to distinguish "principled" politics from "unprincipled": a principled politician can concede graciously with having to take back his or her campaign.

John McCain provides us with a perfect example. If he had really believed that Barack Obama was advised by "domestic terrorists," he could not have given the concession speech that he did. If he really believed that, his concession speech would have been a dire warning to the country of the grave danger it faced. Instead, he told us that the only association Obama had that mattered was that he was American.

This is the issue the media swings at but misses with all the talk of "negative campaigning" and "attack ads." Principled and unprincipled attacks get lumped together in a absurd measure of "going negative" that suggests a good candidate never criticizes his or her opponent. Instead of "negative campaigning" we need to talk about unprincipled politicians.

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election

Comments

[dorzic]

There's nothing less endearing than a politician being eloquent and speaking from the heart when there is no other choice but for them to appear eloquent and heartfelt.

[kudzumaster]

"If the only time you can actually speak from your heart is when you have lost, then why are you running? What good are you doing anyone, including yourself?"

Well said, and, I believe, a good example of where McCain lost himself. When he decided to 'invent' himself as a cadidate, when he decided to emulate Bush's campaign strategy, he lost.

Lesson here: Leave your game at home. Just bring us yourself.

[birdandcat]

Given that the economy moved against him, McCain probably never had much of a chance. Still I think his best chance was to mimic Harry Truman. Here's how I would have played it. Engineer a walk out of conservatives at the convention, most likely by picking a pro choice VP. Then relentlessly trash the Bush adminstration (as this plan was hatched before the meltdown it did not include strategy on the bailout )
Depict Obama as too far left and the rump R's as too far right and position yourself in the center. I shared this only with Democrats though at the time I said, "would McCain do this? Nah he's too dumb."
Aside from ego self massage, I'm putting this out in case some other R sees it and starts the process of moving the Republican party back towards sanity. (I fear it will be a long wait)

[ocinemod]

Lincoln, FDR, Ike, Kennedy, they all gave great speeches that didn't rely on denigration and fear. It seemed like a future collection of great moments in contemporary presidential speech would consist mostly of concession speeches. It seemed that way until Tuesday night anyway. Hopefully Obama's politics of deep consideration and measured tone is contagious.

[Lincoln]

Very good observation! Dead on. What one can see here is the very real and HUGE difference between a politican with a mature and INTEGRATED personality, and politicans with (immature) NARCISSISTIC personalities. Persons with the latter are typically NOT REAL, not genuinely reality-based, in what or how they present. They present what they "calculate" will make a desired impression: good for themselves, bad for those they feel are in competition with them. In both cases, they distort the reality. Look closely: you'll find they are never as good as they represent, nor those they diss as bad as they represent them to be.

Narcissistic personalities present a real danger to the commonweal, precisely because they are not genuinely what they seem to be, nor others really how they portray them. They purport to be serving the common good, when in reality they mainly are only trying to look super good to the public. They feel a deep need to be broadly acclaimed not only as good, but as super good; for, in reality, they feel empty and super bad inside. If we elect one to office, they will feel good for only a short time, and make us feel good for only a short and misleading time. Then, reality sets in. In reality, they feel bad, and confused about why, and they make us very bad, and confused about why. This is how they communicate how they really feel.

Examples abound: GWB, Cheney, both Clintons, etc., etc.

[jcd8822]

How strange you wrote about this. I had mentioned this just this afternoon to a neighbor. I could not believe I was hearing John McCain giving such an eloquent speech.. It was the John McCain of 2000 conceeding, not the John McCain who just came in off of the 2008 campaign trail. So, in retrospect, John McCain of 2008 helped cause the John McCain of 2000 to be defeated in the election campaign.

[progressivepam]

the John McCain who spoke on Tuesday night could have won the election. Lucky for us he decided to sell his soul.

[wulfsbane]

Barack won, in large part, because the man behind the green curtain was the same as the one one the big screen. He was always himself in this campaign, unlike Hillary who at times resembled the bride of Rove, who mocked hope one minute, and embraced it the next.

And McCain was all over the board, touting experience, then taking on this newbie from Alaska who didn't even know what vice presidents do.

We've seen our share of duplicity in the last eight years. We've heard enough bullshit, and fearmongering to know that its just that. A tactic used to subjugate the sheep.

Be yourself, is the message of this campaign. It's a hell of a lot easier in the long run.

[anon004]

This gets at all the studies that purport to show that the media was more "negative" for McCain than Obama in the last two months (or after the conventions). Saying something not positive about someone that is at least in the realm of being true is called criticism, saying something negative about someone that is demonstrably false is called a lie (or a smear). The reason the MSM was more "negative" about McCain in the last two months of the election was that they were finally reporting the truth -- that McCain ran a smear-laden, crappy campaign, and Obama's so-called attacks were not character assassinations, but disputes over policy.