Making Sense

Yesterday, Barack Obama gave a major speech on the economy. I was out of the country over the weekend, but the McCain campaign had decided that he, too, would speak on the economy yesterday. Then, they decided not to do so. Then, they announced that they would have no new proposals unless events warranted them. Then, they announced he would present new proposals today. Round and round he goes. Where he stops... The Arizona Senator's lack of coherence has been on display throughout this crisis; meanwhile, as Senator Obama's speech text suggests, he has a firm grasp on the current situation.

When I teach structure to public speaking students, I point out that the structure of a speech does not mean the outline. Clear points alone do not make for a well-ordered address. Rather, structure is a strategy; a nicely crafted speech leads the audience from point to point, affecting not only their reason("Oh, B does follow from A") but also their emotion, what Kenneth Burke calls qualitative form--shifts in mood, as one emotion leads nicely into another and crafts an identity for the audience conducive to the speaker's purpose. Barack Obama's economic speech yesterday is a lovely example of this sort of coherence in action.

He begins "at a moment of great uncertainty for America." The text imitates the state of the nation, as Obama's sentences begin to pop from one problem to the next, without a clear link between them. The "crisis we face is the worst since the Great Depression." "markets" are "unstable," "hard-earned savings have disappeared," the "credit crisis has left businesses large and small unable to get loans," "auto plants right here in Ohio..." and so on and so forth (my emphasis). The instability Obama claims for the nation is proven logically through his evidence and emotionally through the ricocheting series of examples. Those examples, however, do have a spatial logic, if not a conceptual one. They narrow to Ohio. So, the chaos is centered in the state Obama addresses, a subtle indication of his wisdom. He's gone to the heart of the problem, the epicenter of the quake. He concludes the introduction with a lovely appropriation of Ronald Reagan, "At this rate, the question isn't just 'are you better off now than you were four years ago?', it's 'are you better off than you were four weeks ago?'"

The Republican candidates, particularly John McCain, embraced Reagan throughout the primary season and McCain continues to do so. Yet the world is moving so fast, Obama reasons, that Reagan's words--his wisdom--no longer apply; his question has been superseded and, the implication runs, we need a president who can move as quickly as the world now does. Who can do so? McCain or Obama?

Obama then orders the chaos he creates in the introduction and steadies the mood of the audience. The Senator first assures us that we can "steer ourselves out of this crisis," invoking the oldest and most steady of American political metaphors, the ship of state--we can "steer." After he creates an audience able to face down "war and depression, great challenges and great threats," he says such an audience needs "a new direction." The claim that we can triumph is followed by a dismissal of his opponent's path, noting that the McCain campaign "announced that they were going to 'turn the page'" on the economic issue (how dumb can that campaign get?). So, the introduction embodies the chaos, the transition assures us both that we can succeed and that McCain is not the way. We can "turn the page" on McCain because his theory has visibly failed. What, then, is required for success?

We need a long term and a short term plan. Obama first reiterates the "long-term" proposals he's already made, but notes "Right now, we face an immediate economic emergency." That's the second time we've seen the "face" metaphor--to face is to see something, to open up to it, to square up to it. FDR urged us to face the depression frankly and boldly in his first Inaugural--we no longer cringe. We stand up. At that point, Obama stands up and faces the problem squarely. Four areas follow. They build from individual to family to housing to the financial system. Note the steady outward growth. Note the clear logical structure. Note the way he relieves immediate audience anxiety first and only then moves out into larger concerns. Once you feel more in control of your life, you feel more capable of ordering the big stuff. Once you see and hear a leader order the world in a text, you begin to feel that leader can order the world from the White House.

The policy section is detailed and clear. In fact, Obama may bog down a tad in the details, but that's probably necessary at this point to demonstrate his seriousness of purpose. If these four subsections form the first section of the body, then the next two sections form the second area of analysis. Note the Obama not only possesses structure, but also substructure. It is an orderly world; we can hold chaos at bay if we face up to it.

In the second section, the Senator first acknowledges that the emergency may postpone some plans and then acknowledges, ala FDR's First, that we need a "new ethic of responsibility." We've "lived through an era of easy money, in which we were allowed and even encouraged to spend without limits, to borrow instead of save." Ah, but one suspects the moneychangers who encouraged us to do such deeds will be driven from the temple in the next subsection. Indeed, we can "restore a sense of fairness and balance that will give every American a fair shot [a new deal, perhaps?] at the American dream. And above all, we can restore [there's that word again] confidence--confidence in America, confidence in our economy, confidence in ourselves." Note that we don't have a crisis of confidence--too much 1979 Jimmy Carter there. Rather, this "country and the dream it represents are being tested..." and surely, Obama assures us, we will meet this test.

Okay, we''ve been tested before in American political rhetoric, tested all of the time since the Puritans landed. This is not quite a jeremiad. The Senator does not detail the American covenant with God, decry us for our departure from that covenant, and then call for redemption, but he comes close. Obama sets up a chaotic, disorderly, nonsensical world and gradually restores order. Policy does so. Character does so. The American people do so. Leadership does so. The restoration of old values will make of the American temple a clean and orderly place once again.

Why have Americans responded so well to Obama since this crisis began? Because he makes sense of the world. This speech is a superb example of that. Challenges lead to policies lead to solutions lead to redemption. He displays and then orders the world in his texts. That is a quality that has been, thus far, sorely missing from McCain's speeches and campaign. In a crisis, it's a quality we admire.

Comments

[V]

I love how the second sentence in this post, when read a certain way, suggests that the McCain campaign relies on your advice for his speeches and thus had to, um, wing it while you were away.

I am glad you and CA are back!