Gosh, what a phrase!
For those of you lucky enough to be able to listen to the (generally wonderful) BBC Radio 4, and who were awake and listening this morning (this morning is a holiday in the UK so I guess many of you weren’t) there was a brief interview with an American political commentator about the Democratic Convention, which starts today. All fairly standard stuff, until a question about what the Convention was for, what he hoped for from it as an observer.
He hoped, he said, for a moment of romantic transcendence – a moment, for example, such as “Read my lips: no new taxes” or (my interpretation here) “It’s the economy, stupid”. Given that Obama’s strengths lie in being new and his ability to speak and inspire (and from the UK perspective that is perhaps his only strength?!) there’s a lot riding on his ability to pull some such phrase out of the air, to create a moment which has its own political momentum and which, almost on its own, will drive towards the White House.
Failing to hit now, to hit while all the media are his and his alone – failure to put clear air between him and the opposition – will mire his campaign down in places where the Republican candidate is stronger. So said the commentator in question.
So is that what it comes down to? The post of ‘the most important man in the world’ is perhaps going to be settled one way or the other on the basis of a couple of presentations?
I train people to make presentations and speak in public – it’s what my company does to pay for our homes and food! – but even I wonder if that’s sensible!
Mind you – sensible or not – it’s the way of the world and like it or loathe it, it’s a sure-fire indication of the importance of being able to put your ideas over to a (sometimes sceptical) audience. Assuming Obama doesn’t blow it, it’s going to be a fascinating lesson in how the rest of us (we ‘normal people’ ) can affect the world around us.
We might not all be able to create such self-sustaining phrases (how about “I have a dream”?) but it’s a great idea to aspire to that, isn’t it? If we can create something which exists in our audience’s minds after we’ve finished our presentation we’ve created something important.
