Threads #nlpoli

Writing good speeches is more art than science but even without much experience, you can tell when a part of a speech doesn’t ring true.

There was a spot like that in Kathy Dunderdale’s resignation speech.

Hearing it made you wince.

It just didn’t sit right. 

Reading the passage doesn’t make it any better.  Here it is:

Speech Writing #nlpoli

Write in a way that sounds like the person delivering the speech would have said it.

You might not find that on any lists of great speech writing tips, but few people who write speeches would think of using words, phrases and sentence structures that just normally wouldn’t flow out of the mouth of the person delivering the speech.

You can see this point with Kathy Dunderdale.

Listen to her in a scrum on the fishery.  It’s at the 5:15 mark of a CBC newscast from December 2. She mangles a reference to contract negotiations between the fisheries union and Ocean Choice International. 

Then there’s a speech Dunderdale delivered in early November to a Canadian-American trade development group. This does not sound like Kathy Dunderdale:

Few of you would be here in this room today if you did not share my belief that there is indeed a time for courage, a time for stepping forward, a time for stepping up to do things that are hard, not out of hubris or reckless bravado, but out of a pure and rational conviction that greater things can be achieved by facing a challenge than by backing away from it. Fear has been running rampant through the marketplace in recent months. There are some who say this is a time not to build on great dreams, but to bury our ambitions – not to do the hard things, but to hunker down. I suspect that hunkering down is not why you are here. I suspect that you believe this is the time, not to bury or hunker or flee, but to “accept” the challenge, “to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills”, to “intend to win”, and to energize this economy the way economic growth has always been energized – with courage, confidence, ingenuity and hard work.

And then it turns into a long-winded recital of Muskrat mythology, everything from it’s low cost to its affordable to “we made an economic miracle.”

The whole thing is flatulent. 

Windy.

All the same, this part of the speech has plenty of potential.  It’s about three or four re-writes away from being a decent one. 

Whoever put it together has managed to pick up the idea that repetition works.  Read through it again and see if you can pick them up:

• …a time for courage, a time for stepping forward,  a time for stepping up to do the things that are hard…
• …to accept the challenge, to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, to intend to win, and to energise the economy…
• …with courage, confidence, ingenuity and bravado…

What the person who wrote this speech missed is that while repetition is good, you should repeat them in threes to achieve maximum impact.  Casual observation and detailed research bear it out.

Groups of three.

Don’t believe it?  Winston Churchill’s wartime pledge that he had nothing to offer but  “blood, toil, tears and sweat” usually gets remembered as “blood, sweat and tears.”

Later in the same speech, Churchill said his wartime aim was victory:

…victory at all costs,  victory in spite of all terror,  victory, however long and hard the road may be…

Let’s take that last bit of Dunderdale speech and re-work it. 

I suspect that you believe this is the time, not to bury or hunker or flee, but to “accept” the challenge, “to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills”, to “intend to win”, and to energize this economy the way economic growth has always been energized – with courage, confidence, ingenuity and hard work.

First of all, it is one big sentence.

So read it out loud.

Take your time and read it again.

Speeches are meant to be heard, not read.

Read it again.

There’s a bit of rhythm there. 

But see a problem?

Yeah, it is basically a series of repetitions of things.  The writer takes an idea to aid memory – repetition – and destroys the impact by doing it over and over again in a single sentence.

But wait a second, there’s another nice touch in there that can help us re-work it.  Look at the front end of that sentence.  There’s another useful device:  the contrast.  This is a time “not to…” ,  “but to”.

It sounds a bit like Marc Antony’s speech from Julius Caesar:

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

Incidentally, remember how that speech starts?

Go look it  up.

Anyway, then the Dunderdale speech gives four things that we “but to”. 

Too much.

Then there are those opening words.  They suggest that Dunderdale is uncertain.  “I suspect that you believe…”.  I think you might believe this, possibly.

Awkward.

Why not just start out with a firm declaration?

“I believe that this is not the time to run away…”.

Run away is a simple phrase that conjures up the image of cowardice.

Bad.

Definitely something you would not agree with.

“Bury” doesn’t real fit.  It’s missing the object of the phrase:  what are you burying? The thought is incomplete.

“Hunker” only works properly if you combine with “down”.   “Hunkering down” is what you do when a hurricane is ripping through your town.  Hunkering down is what you do to survive a storm.  The image this conjures up is wrong.

On the other hand, “flee” is the image that the writer seems to have been shooting for.

It’s just that “flee” is a puffy word.  It is lace doilies.

“Run away” is the same idea but in a word that most people in the audience will pick up instantly with exactly the meaning you want:

“I believe that this is not the time to run away.”

Let’s make that one sentence.  You can add some stage instruction to the speaking notes for the speaker to lean on the word “not.”

So now we just have to complete the thought, tell people what we believe they must do.

Again, we’ve got the fours here.  The repetition is too heavy and even if it seems that this is an effort to work some mission statement into a speech, the result is a bit much.

What we need to do here is give the statement of what we think should happen.  We are looking for the oppose of run away.  Cowards run away.  Brave people do what?  They “face” up to things.

With Americans, a military metaphor would work as well.  A suggestion of combat, of fighting and winning what was lost would set up a clean picture of what the writer is struggling to say with all that repetition.

I believe this is not the time to run away.
I believe this is the time to face the fight.

Almost done.

We just need to close the deal with a line that will have them clapping away in agreement.

Here’s where the group of three comes in.

“…courage, confidence,  ingenuity and hard work…”

The first one and the last one are both naturals. 

The middle two don’t work as well.  It’s hard to be courageous without being confident.

Ingenuity is a good quality.  Americans pride themselves on being inventive.  They are clever.  They come up with original ideas.

But ingenuity is bit of a 50 cent word.  It isn’t quite as plain as the others.

A quick flip through a book of words that have similar meanings gets you in the neighbourhood of “creativity”.

And there you are, done:

I believe this is not the time to run away.
I believe this is the time to face the fight…
with courage, creativity and hard work.

Rule of Three.

Repetition.

Plain language.

And it would all sound like words Kathy Dunderdale would use.

Here endeth the lesson.

- srbp -

JFK’s speech on religion and politics

Religion played a huge role in the 1960 presidential election.

Specifically, Republicans questioned how John Kennedy would govern, given that he was a practicing Roman Catholic.   A group of 150 Protestant ministers and laymen publicly opposed the idea of a Roman Catholic president.  In a public statement, the group  -including Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale – stated that, among other things, they felt it "is inconceivable that a Roman Catholic President would not be under extreme pressure by the hierarchy of his church to accede to its policies with respect to foreign relations.”

While the Republicans did not use the religion issue as part of the national campaign, the issue continued to dog Kennedy throughout the race.

A speech to Greater Houston Ministerial Association in September 1960, right,  proved to be Kennedy’s definitive statement on the subject.

The campaign used film of the speech in television advertising and ran it repeatedly throughout the fall of 1960, especially in areas where there was a heavy Roman catholic population.

In her definitive study of presidential advertising, Kathleen Hall Jamieson demonstrates that the Democrats used Kennedy’s speech both defensively and offensively.  They used it to rebut the Republican attacks and at the same time tried to motivate Roman Catholic voters.

National Public radio produced a transcript of the entire speech.  As Jamieson notes, some consider this to be Kennedy’s best speech. At the opening, Kennedy lists what he considers to be the real issues of the campaign.  

He then turns to a series of statements of his own views, that flow from this introduction:

But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in — for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.

The structure of the speech -  a series of paragraphs starting with “I believe…” deliberately mimics the structure of any statement of faith.  Kennedy continues to recite the articles of his own political faith including the separation of church and state, that effective places his critics in the position of doing the very thing they attack Kennedy on. 

He finishes his statement of political faith with words every member of his audience would know:

But if, on the other hand, I should win the election, then I shall devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the presidency — practically identical, I might add, to the oath I have taken for 14 years in the Congress. For without reservation, I can "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, so help me God.

You can find the video of the speech on youtube:

JFK on religion and politics

These days, Kennedy’s campaign could not rely on broadcasting the speech in five minute and the full 10 minute airings as part of their ad campaign. 

This is a short speech.

The words are compelling and Kennedy delivers it reasonably well.

The subject was highly controversial in a way that few mi9ght appreciate these days.

But the audience has changed.

Modern audiences simply won’t sit still for a talking head that goes on about any subject for nearly 11 minutes.

They definitely would find Kennedy’s speech itself taxing.  The sentences are much longer than the short statements that modern audiences are used to hearing. While it suits the immediate audience, the speech demands that people be familiar with the subject and with a great deal of history, including more recent events at the time.

Still, there are quotable bits likely crafted to make them fit with a potential series of short spots:

These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues — for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.

The first sentence doesn’t stand on its own, however. 

You’d have to hear the list of real issues to get the full effect.

While Kennedy runs them off effectively enough, the transcript would have great visual impact if the issues came not as a series of clauses separated by semi-colons but as a bulleted list:

I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election:

• the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida;
• the humiliating treatment of our president and vice president by those who no longer respect our power;
• the hungry children I saw in West Virginia;
• the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills;
• the families forced to give up their farms;
• an  America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space.

Still, each one is expressed simply enough.  The last point relies on the repetition of the word “too” – “too many slums”,  “too few schools,” “too late” to space.

All the same, the speech is extraordinarily well written both for its time and for today.

It reflects the input of Kennedy’s political staff – like ted Sorensen – and undoubtedly the campaigns advertising staff as well.

- srbp -

Williams to address Canadian Club in Ottawa

June 9 at the Chateau Laurier.

Topic: The Province We Are; The Province We Aspire To Be

Mel Gibson Update:  The World the Old Man Lives In is about to get weirder than usual.

One of the sponsors of the Premier’s luncheon speech in Ottawa will be none other than Ogilvy Renault.  Now for those who may have missed this little detail, OR is one of the law firms who’ve been helping the evil conspiracy – in this case fronted by AbitibiBowater – to thwart the aspirations of no less a personage than the Old Man Hisself.

Arguably, Ogilvy Renault is itself part of the gigantic, possibly global conspiracy centred in Quebec.

Now this should all make things very interesting if the Old Man’s speech includes his recently offered opinions about “Quebec lovers”. 

Incidentally, Ottawa news media may get hand-out copies of the speech.  But if they don’t, copies are available under the province’s Access to Information laws for a not so-nominal nominal fee.

According to a recent decision by the Premier’s Office, backed by the access commissioner, copies of speeches delivered publicly must be first read and redacted – you cannot make this stuff up -  with all the applicable charges for editing and deleting sections from speeches which were delivered in public.

One recent requestor found himself on the receiving end of an initial estimate of $10,000 for copies of the Premier’s public speeches since 2003.  Williams even bitched about the request during a scrum. And no, they aren’t available for free download from the government website.

Such is the World the Old Man Lives In.

-srbp-