Obama is an excellent rhetorician.
There’s a large part of me that would like to see an Obama presidency just so I could listen to those speeches for, perhaps, eight years. The man is either extremely well prepared, or is an artist who can shape his spontaneity to his will and practical purpose. Or both. Either bodes well for a presidency. Alliteration, anadiplosis, anaphora, antistrophe and o so many other flourishes flow from him like milk. It has a beauty. Does it matter? It does to someone who thinks that a president needs to be intelligent, fast-thinking, educated and inspiring.
He’s not Bush, is he? And I’d like to meet his script-writer.
Moreover, “Yes We Can” may be one of the best political slogans in a century – one of few that do justice to the verbal power of the man with whom this formerly innocuous phrase may be forever associated.
Yes: Simplest and shortest unqualified statement of positivity.
We: Simplest and shortest assertion of unity
Can: Simplest and shortest statement of capability.
Positivity, unity and capability. Nice.
And together, the three words stand as a firm refusal to engage any argument that would seek to limit a great nation’s creativity or power to define itself. That definitely would be a change.
Robin Koerner is a British-born citizen of the USA, who currently serves as Academic Dean of the John Locke Institute. He holds graduate degrees in both Physics and the Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge (U.K.). He is also the founder of WatchingAmerica.com, an organization of over 100 volunteers that translates and posts in English views about the USA from all over the world.
Robin may be best known for having coined the term “Blue Republican” to refer to liberals and independents who joined the GOP to support Ron Paul’s bid for the presidency in 2012 (and, in so doing, launching the largest coalition that existed for that candidate).
Robin’s current work as a trainer and a consultant, and his book If You Can Keep It , focus on overcoming distrust and bridging ideological division to improve politics and lives. His current project, Humilitarian, promotes humility and civility as a basis for improved political discourse and outcomes.