Listening to a speech by Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff earlier this year it was obvious that it was built on slices from earlier speeches that were pulled together into the requisite Leader’s Remarks that were a highlight of the program. It was not that he was tired or the words not fresh enough in his mind. He got a passing grade. He made the point that the Liberal Party is a big tent party with room for all of us. He got the requisite interruptions for applause and it was obvious he was liked but he failed to inspire.
Mind you, memorable political speeches are hardly a frequent event in our society. Even the early promise in President Obama’s oratory on health care has devolved into highly partisan and predictable speeches in defence of his liberalism. His speeches have become a ghost of past promise. The man appears to be tiring and he might lack the stamina for the eight year course that can assure him a proper place in the history books of the world.
Having written more than a few political speeches over the years, it is amazing to note how few people understand the structural needs of an effective speech, or how to involve and build empathy with the audience, how to breath with the flow of the words, recognizing the critical timing needed to bring out audience response and how to end the speech on a crescendo of approval. And that is only part of the challenge.
Whether you are Shakespeare writing a funeral oration for Marc Anthony, Abraham Lincoln penning a few words for a talk at Gettysburg or Winston Churchill ruminating on the threat to England of Hitler’s forces for Canada’s Parliament, you realize that it is the ability of the speaker to be of like mind with the audience that is essential to the development of the speech. Oratory without that vital identification is just that: oratory.
Any American school child above the sixth grade can tell you how President Lincoln identified himself with his listeners by reminding them of what happened Fourscore and seven years ago… Marc Anthony had to quickly align himself with an angry mob of Friends, Romans and countrymen, and there was no question to his listeners in Canada’s Parliament and on the radio who it was that Churchill was referring to when he commented: Some chicken! Some neck!
It is once you have figuratively taken yourself off the podium and planted yourself firmly with your audience that you can reveal where your speech is going. Martin Luther King said simply that I have a dream. The speech was longer than that but it is that essence that will be long remembered.
Too many people think of a speech as one-sided. There are two elements: the speaker and the audience. First we have to understand what the audience wants from the speaker. That must be satisfied first. Then we can deal with what the speaker wants from the audience. Think of it as a quid pro quo.
A speech also has to have a rhythm. As in composing an aria for the performer, the speech must follow an easy breathing pattern and that essential ingredient of both comedy and pathos, timing. This means bringing sentences to a high ending. It is opening appropriate space for applause and audience reaction and contemplation. It is as simple as asking the audience for their commitment as well as their agreement—once you know it will be affirmative.
And when does a speech end? There is no magic timing. You know when they are too long. You know they are good when they leave you wanting more. As the American school children will tell you, the Gettysburg Address is mercifully short. The length of a speech should be as Mr. Lincoln said to the person who asked how long a man’s legs should be, Long enough to reach the ground.
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