Guest Voice: Eloquence, Messages and Money in the Race for President

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Eloquence, Messages and Money in the Race for President

By Alex Hammer

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney each published long articles on foreign policy today in the publication Foreign Affairs (links to reach each article). Read THIS and THIS.

Under the subheading “Common Security For Our Common Humanity”, Obama very eloquently details a historical progression through Roosevelt and Truman and JFK providing for our security while also providing at the same time for the next generation. He then adds, “Today, we are again called to provide visionary leadership”.

Romney’s writing, while less poetic than Obama’s, is just as intricate, and – depending upon your point of view and who you agree with – innovative and/or astute. But the fact that it is not as easy to read, in my opinion, from a style perspective – makes it more work to get through the Romney piece.

Maybe you are less superficial than I might be in that regard.

I wonder if flowery ideas, ideals and messages are a prerequisite for a winning presidential candidate. While not every one of his facts was correct, Ronald Reagan was known as “The Great Communicator”. Like Bill Clinton, often referred to as the best pure politician of our time, they know that we want – I guess in the aggregate – for our Presidents to be a little larger than life.

Certainly they both were (and in Clinton’s case, as he is still alive and hasn’t lost that skill, present tense remains) masters of how to work a crowd, and an audience. They had the personal interactive qualities that played well.

Just as JFK himself bettered Nixon in that classic TV debate.

And why some critique Hillary. While not a bad public speaker at all, she has a strong image, among some, of being either cold, calculating or overbearing.

And then there’s Ron Paul. His messages seem pretty easy to understand, although some of his supporters claim that these messages become distorted by the media. Certainly Ron Paul says things, goes into areas, where other politicians might fear to tread. It’s controversial. I’m not putting a judgment on it good or bad.

And the man with whom he had a major flare-up with in the last Republican debate. DETAILS HERE.

Rudy Giuliani, himself can be a controversial figure. And polarizing. I lived in and near New York City during almost his entire tenure as Mayor, and Giuliani, a bold individual (some call it leadership) was extremely forceful, some say quite harsh.

And then there’s the Internet. With all of the “gotcha” moments that have and can occur, it might seem that campaigns are increasingly transparent. But it’s interesting also how new mediums tend also to (one could argue in regard to the degree) become also co-opted. For example, many of the candidates use viral videos to have “conversations”, often one-sided messages that might in fact increase the degree of distance — i.e. reduce true dialogue — in campaigns.

While not being pessimistic and throwing the baby out with the bathwater (certainly the Internet does great good), how does such co-opting occur? Well, money never hurts. Look at the top flight talent in the campaigns. Most of the majors are loaded. Barack Obama has Joe Rospars (and Chris Hughes) and others, Hillary Clinton has Peter Daou, etc.

Which brings up back to Ron Paul. He has more internet traffic than anyone, even Barack Obama as this shows.

He’s on fire across the top Internet websites (YouTube, Technorati, , etc.). But he’s buried in the polls. Romney was low in the polls too until he raised all that money. Ron Paul has not had significant success in fundraising, and not surprisingly – it still follows – his standing in major polls (outside of the Internet ones) is quite low.

I guess in the world of politics eloquence helps. And money helps a lot.