President Talks to Capital, Labor
posted by Lawrence Cunningham
President Obama spoke somberly to capital yesterday and exuberantly to labor today, in speeches that hardly could have differed more. One was a policy leader’s thought piece, the other a campaign stump speech whipping up a fawning constituency.
A progressive Democrat may be more likely to ham it up with steelworkers in Pennsylvania and keep it cooler with investment bankers in New York. Yet the differences in these speeches were even more striking than expected and I suspect that is not a good thing.
Yesterday’s speech, in Federal Hall in lower Manhattan, was a stern, level-headed admonishment about lessons of the financial crisis, requiring better regulation and supervision, emphasizing the value of free and fair markets. The President’s tone was even, serious and sober; the content was substantive, laying out specific lessons and responses. His audience applauded during the speech just once, at his proposed consumer financial protection agency. A professorial tutorial to a studious audience, it was a persuasive speech.
Today’s, at the AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh, was an exuberant, ideological clarion cry to build a “stronger labor movement,” improve “organized labor,” and promote collective bargaining. It was repeatedly interrupted by applause, chanting support for immediate changes in law (“We Can’t Wait”) and ended with the President’s rising voice demanding to know of the audience, “Are you fired up? Are you ready to go? Are you fired up? Are you ready to go.”? A rousing oration, but it was not persuasive.
The President’s remarks in New York were delivered in polished prose, using standard English pronunciation. In Pittsburgh, he opted for a folksy, slangy style, often pronouncing gerunds without the g, referring to “workin’ families,” eerily reminiscent of his predecessor’s normal speakin’ style. He referred to his audience several times as “brothers and sisters,” and asked a fawning participant whose voice cracked when yelling “I love you,” mid-speech, whether this “sister” had been “hollerin’ too much.”
Both speeches were designed to increase support for legislation, New York’s for financial regulation, to an audience perceived to be unreceptive to that, and Pittsburgh’s on health care, to an audience manifestly enthusiastic about that (though the energetic applause and hooting followed when the President used empty rhetorical slogans, with silence falling at the mention of even the most basic policy points he is proposing).
Of course, President Obama needed to be persuasive in New York, standing before an audience likely to be skeptical of or opposed to his financial reform ideas. He may not have felt need to be persuasive in Pittsburgh, among devoted fans. Yet I saw both speeches on C-SPAN, as many others did.
Much has been written lately about how different are campaigning and governing, analysis that often emphasizes how skills President Obama used to get elected won’t necessarily assist him in executive leadership. The New York speech demonstrates firmly the President’s capacity for influential, substantive, speechmaking. Probably more of that, and less of the Pittsburgh speech’s fiery style, would help the country work through the momentous challenges it faces.
Photo Credit: White House (Pete Souza)
September 15, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Posted in: Current Events
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Responses (2)
Mike Zimmer - September 16, 2009 at 6:48 am
Shortly after then-Senator Obama was elected, I heard him speak to a business group in Chicago. It may have been that the meeting was salted with every Democrat any of the members knew to invite, but he got a tremendous ovation by speaking seriosly in “the heart of the enemy.” He was just as impressive at Wall Steet, so why no ovation? Is it that doing what he says needs to be done is more likely to happen when it is the President, and not a junior Senator, speaking?
Lawrence Cunningham - September 16, 2009 at 11:44 am
There was an enthusastic ovation on Monday in New York at the end of the speech, and after the President was introduced. Just one interruption during it.
My sense for why is the speech was pure policy, without punch lines that stimulated applause; in contrast, the Pittsburgh speech was studded with punch lines obviously designed to stimulate applause (and sometimes hooting). That is a reason I found the Pittsburgh speech both less persuasive and less helpful.
I did not see the Chicago speech you mention so can’t compare it to this New York speech, but my sense of the New York’s audience response had nothing to do with probability of the President’s reforms being adopted, but with how they enticed and warranted thoughtful consideration.
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