Now that we know John McCain will show up tonight, the question is: Which Barack Obama will show up tonight?
When Obama and McCain sat down with pastor Rick Warren for their first pseudo-debate, Obama was calm, thoughtful. He took care choosing his words, often peppering his sentences with "uh"s and "y'know"s (Obama pronounces "y'know" as "y'oh") while he found just the right one. Though the questions dealt with the most profound issues - life and death and families and evil - Obama showed little emotion in his voice, and even less on his face. His attitude seemed to be that he was there to give us some insight into his carefully considered thought process.
Last week, as the financial turmoil unfolded, as Obama spoke before large crowds in battleground states, he found his voice. He indicted McCain and the fat cats that run his party for gambling away America's financial strength. He frowned, he gestured widely and boomed out "I have a message for John McCain..." He gestured like he was sprinkling seeds to illustrate the GOP's laughable "trickle-down" philosophy. Then he smiled and chuckled and made a crack about the old boys' network being a McCain staff meeting. He was strong, he was fun, he was emotionally engaged and accessible.
He was the guy we have been waiting for.
I've spent the past few months coaching Democrats on public speaking and preparing them for debates. The biggest challenge most democrats have to overcome is their burning desire to discuss the issues in lots of intricate detail. At first glance, that might seem like a reasonable thing to do in a debate. But people do not vote for and against issue positions, they vote for and against candidates - people, not policies. The voters who are still persuadable at this stage in a campaign are not big on policy, or they'd have made up their minds by now. They are choosing between these two people based on how they feel about them. They size up each candidate's character to get a sense of which one is likely to do a better job. What sways their decisions is the emotion that each candidate shows in his words, voice and visuals. They want to know: Does this candidate understand where I am coming from? Are they strong enough to get the job done? Are they warm enough that I can relate to them, and feel confident they'll look out for me?
Fighting on that emotional terrain, attitude is everything. The most important preparation to walk out on that stage is not to memorize the briefing books, or even a few snappy lines (though having the right words at the ready definitely helps). The critical thing is to get into the right mood and the right frame of mind: relaxed and happy to be there, full of confidence to laugh off a silly attack or stand up to a serious one, looking forward to the opportunity to reach out and connect emotionally with the voters. Do that, and voters see a leader they can believe in, strong and warm, in charge and on their side. If Obama will do that, we'll win.
Think of the best moments in debates past: "You're no Jack Kennedy." "There you go again..." "I'm your girl!" Yes, smart policy is necessary for good government - as we've seen all too painfully lately - but smart policy is not what wins debates, or elections. Would that it were not so, of course, but we do ourselves no favors pretending otherwise.
As Democrats, we will probably always look forward to debates as a chance to explain our ideas to the American people and make our adversaries answer for the shortcomings of theirs. But that's usually our downfall. Because when we treat a debate as a chance to show the public how much smarter we are than the other guys, we lose. That is the common thread running through the candidacies of Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, and, too often, Barack Obama too. For the sake of... well, of pretty much everything at this point... let's hope Obama breaks that thread tonight.
I have done some public speaking. I have faced the situation where I knew the topic like the back of my hand, only as I was giving the presentation I suddenly found myself thinking beyond the subject matter or even more scary thinking about how I might be perceived by the audience. Whenever this happened, I was able to recover. Each time recovery was preceded by vocal fumbling as I struggled to regain focus.
The most memorable occurrence was a large meeting where I was the only African American in the room. I was almost through the presentation and all was going well until out of nowhere I started to think about my old neighborhood. How people there were facing a different reality than mine. For the next minute or so (seemed like hours) my words took on a syrupy quality and the environment became hazy as beads of sweat formed on my forehead in panic.
Do not forget the historical nature of this contest and that this normally confident man is subject to basic human frailties of self-awareness in a historical context. Traveling in uncharted waters can make a captain appear aloof and cause rigidity where normally the person flows.
Damn! I was shouting out better retorts in my living room.
"Maverick? You've voted with Bush 93% of the time. You, sir, are no Maverick."
Oh how I wish he'd said that. Or anything even slightly fiery or amusing.
The point is that we live in a universe of perceived phenomena called reality. However, all concepts and judgements are intrinsic, so any notion of truth is limited to our internal world! Therefore, we cannot truly make determinations about politicians based merely on what they say, or how they say it. Having a drunk vs. a clear-headed-professor tell us that a building is on fire carries no weight to the issue of whether, or not, the information is true. But it may carry weight to the issue of judgement on the part of those who must act on the information.
So now, we have all these people who want to scutinize OBAMA-the man who literally predicted the current fiasco. Yet, despite all of this "neo-scruitinization", we elected Ron Reagan, an ex CIA director(Bush I) and the hegemonist/voodoo economist Bush II.
We Americans have liberty, but a lot more growing up to do!
www.myamericanprayer.com/video
Inspiring! It will make you proud to be a Democrat!
One question - if you have been helping Democrats to debate and, I assume, others like you have been helping Obama, and helped Kerry and Gore before, why are they still blowing it?
In the end, I believe, it's the candidate. Either he has it in him to rise to the occasion, or he doesn't. And if he doesn't have it, he won't get to be President. You may be able to learn public speaking skills but you either have charisma, timing, a quick mind and wit or you don't. Let's hope Obama has it. I think he just might. If he doesn't, instead of teaching debating skills perhaps someone should teach the Democrats how to pick candidates.
I am of the opinion he needs less debate prep and more meditation that will help him to focus during debates.
I trust tonight's debate answered THAT question.
"[undecided voters] are choosing between these two people based on how they feel about them "
your title is a perfect example of why Democrats lose national elections. You have brutally attacked your own candidate at a time when he needs your support, when he is going into a situation were he has struggled in the past. How stupid can you people be???
Back when I was a Republican, I used to delight in this kind of self-defeating behavior. Now I just want ot shake you.
Obama doesn't need you to be going on about him being two different people right now. (He absolutely is NOT two different people; the situations you describe are completely different.)
He doesn't need you reminding him and his supporters of his previous mistakes. He needs your support. He doesn't need you giving Republicans new attacking points, he needs your support.
Democrats are absolutely dense when it comes to the psychology of electoral politics. It's extremely demoralizing to be on the side of Democrats in this election, and realize that the election will come and go, and Democrats will still not get it that Republicans don't win elections, Democrats lose them.
this psychic warfare of conservatives may be subconsious...they want Obama to expound upon what he will do for the American people in detail...you read it and hear it time and time again...but when he offers a nuanced and informative opinion, he's seen as an elitist who can't identify with the lowest common denominators in the citizenry...maybe it's simply a mr. congeniality contest after all, with choices made more on a whim than on actual proficiency or conduct...
He used a lot of "homey" talk. I got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach as the audience obviously warmed to his comfortable jargon use.
Obama is a man of the people, but unfortunately, intelligence often is sensed as talking down to by less thoughtful individuals, and I have noticed since he is taller than most, when he speaks to them,, he is literally looking down on them...and appears petulant. Most people don't get the tall guy looking at, vs looking down. I have had friends comment at him looking down his nose, when I point out his height, they're sort of surprised at the logic.
That said, Obama is hitting his stride, and I am confident, he will hit it out of the park tonight.
Everything that happens between now and election will not matter once people step into the booth to vote. Obama is an untested, inexperienced and arrogant politician that many among the American electorate are not that familiar with. The soaring rhetoric is all they have seen, but they have a lot of questions about who this man is. I heard John McCain described as a "comfortable old shoe" compared with Obama, who has many "experiences" during his lifetime, however, the media just can't seem to delve into any of these, so people are skeptical- with good reason. When it comes down to pulling that lever, I think you will all be surprised how many will defer to McCain.
These are more accurately named "deuling sound bites". Keeping that in mind will help. Modern day America doesn't even have a 1/10 of the attention span necessary to listen to something substantive like the old Lincoln-Douglas debate.