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February 18, 2008
Michelle Obama - all sizzle
Last Friday, Hugh Hewitt ran clips of Michelle Obama's speech at UCLA a couple of weeks ago. The clips are informative in ways that Barak's own speeches are not. Not that Michelle actually says anything more substansive than Barry the Hopemeister. He is all music and no lyric. And while Michelle does her best work in the harmony department, there are some clever and subtle themes being played that, standing alone, should give us pause.
Unlike Jeff Goldstein, I don't have the deep academic background to discuss all the finer semiotic points. And Ed Morrissey tackles the matters of policy in this speech. I want to look at Michelle's UCLA speech from a POV more inline with advertising, marketing and public speaking. How is Michelle's message constructed to speak to, and energize, the Democrat base while making palatable some ideas that the general public might reject? How does Michelle's style of delivery advance or contradict her words?
If you haven't heard Michelle's speech, here is Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. As you're watching it, notice Michelle's performance as you're listening to the words. Notice her clothing, hair, body language and the dynamics of her delivery. Indeed, after listening to the speech once, watch snippets of it again without the sound.
Where I'd like to begin is with Michelle's appearance and how her style of dress, pictured at upper right, was as tailored to a college crowd as her pin-striped suiting (pictured right) was chosen to deliver a message to the crowd gathered in New Hampshire in May 2007. In NH, Michelle was the serious, buttoned-down wife of a presidential candidate sitting quietly on the sidelines until she was "spontaneously" asked why someone should vote for her husband.
"He's a man who has put his values before his profit. He's not running for president because he wants to be president. That's sort of the irony in it. He's running for president because he believes we can do better as a country."
At UCLA she was center stage and her studied-casual outfit of khaki pants, cap sleeve blouse and costume jewelry was telling the students and the rest of the Los Angeles crowd "Don't see me as an Ivy-league-trained lawyer and Senator's wife, I'm just regular folk; a soccer mom, a PTA mom." Her hair is pulled back, "Like you, I don't have time to fuss over myself, not that I value that fussiness anyway. You and me, we have more important things to discuss." Michelle's choice is to put her audience at ease with an image of woman who wouldn't be out of place at their own backyard BBQ.
Now, onto Michelle's performance and how she moves easily between preacher and scold and how close she comes to letting anger take over.
Effective public speaking is a talent. Whether one is a pitchman for the latest multi-level marketing scheme or a standup comedian, reaching out and connecting with largely anonymous audiences and keeping them awake is a skill that is innate. One can learn certain skills, one can improve on delivery and technique, but the true showman revels on the stage. We've already seen the fine oratory skills of Barack; the soaring rhetoric and the emotion he evokes from his audiences. Read the same speeches and one is struck by vapidness, such is his skill in delivery.
Michelle is another formidable speaker. She dominates the stage. A purposeful stride to the podium and she lays open her bare arms upon it, alternately gripping it or gesturing towards the audience. She gestures often, bringing her hand up to shoulder level, using her hand as a conductor does a baton, punctuating her points. Her voice is trained, relaxed throat so the sounds are full and round, and she uses a singer's dynamic of pushing up from the diaphram to give forceful emphasis without shrillness. Other times she drops her voice without going quiet, an intimate tone mirrored by body language of the only times when she drops her arms to her sides and gestures inward with her hands -- "See, we are in this together." Michelle as a speaker wants the audience to be engaged by her performance so they will be emotionally invested in her message.
And her message starts out as populist as anything erstwhile Dem candidate John Edwards ever put out. In part 1, at 1:53
“We are so close in this country to being a united states”
Michelle picks up the Edwards' theme of "two Americas". However, the dreaded Other, the "they" that keep "regular folk" down is never directly articulated. It is just assumed. She spends the first part of this speech talking about her daughters and at 2:23
“I want my girls to travel this world with pride”
Michelle never says why they can't do that now. She never articulates "My girls would be ashamed to be Americans abroad because what THEY have done to our county". Her audience applauds and cheers her line because they get it. They've heard it before and Michelle doesn't have repeat it. She then moves on from her daughters to universalize her wants for all children -- at 2:20
“in 2008 we should be in a place where children can dream any kind of life for themselves regardless of their race, their gender their socio-economic status. They should be able to dream big dreams and know they are going to have the love and resources of this entire nation behind them. That is the least we can do for our children. But the truth is we are not there yet.”
Michelle's speech is full of images of strong, intact, traditional families. She refers often to her own upbringing in such a home, yet she cleverly uses the device to promote a message, not of individual or familial responsibility, but of government as ultimate fulfiller of dreams. Dream your dreams and it will be government to fund them for you. Do it for the children.
"They" haven't only failed the children, so they are restricted in their dreams and cannot travel abroad without being ashamed, but "they" have also made the children, and us, afraid. At 4:24“and we are still a nation that is too guided by fear. We have become afraid of everyone and everything and the problem with [fear] is that is it clouds our judgment and it cuts us off, it cuts us off from one another in our own homes, in our own communities and it has certainly cut us off from the rest of the world.”
Stop the fear and the world will love us again! Nope, we've never heard that meme before. Again, the "they" are responsible for America being unloved" is implied and gets nods and agreements from an audience that is thinking "Michelle knows I get it! She really speaks to me!".
Michelle's brand of populism is more subtly marketed than Edwards'. She wraps it in a cozy package of her own upbringing and contrasts it with a contemporary America she finds wanting. At 7:51
“The truth about America is that the story of my father is the American story. See most Americans are like my father; they just don’t want much. Folks don’t want much. Folks want to know that if they get up and go to work everyday that they’ll earn enough to take care of their families. They want to know that they can ensure their kids get a decent education at those neighborhood public schools around the corner. They want to know if they get sick they won’t go bankrupt. They want to know after a life time of hard work they can retire with a little respect and dignity. That’s all folks want. But the sad truth in this country today is that little bitty slice of life that folks are looking for has become out of reach for most Americans. The simple little life I had has become a virtual impossibility. And we all know this. You see jobs like my father had, those blue collar jobs – outta reach. Dwindling. Disappearing. And if you’re lucky enough to have a job, salaries aren’t keeping up with the cost of living so everybody has got to work.”
Isn't nice to know that Michelle knows exactly what "most folks" want? If you have a job, you're lucky. But watch out, because "they" aren't paying you enough -- NOT that the government (local, state, fed) has increasingly taken bigger chunks out of your paycheck over the decades.
Michelle is a big advocate for the public school system. She offers herself up as "a product" of the neighborhood school. However, if all "regular folk" who "didn't want much" stayed that way, there would have been no public school for her to attend. It is people like her, whose wants and dreams for more than a "little bitty slice" that fund those schools.
But Michelle isn't done with just public education of K-12. She doesn't like post-high school education being an individual responsibility. In part 2 at 1:30 to cheers she says
"the cost of the degree is not covered by the salary you’ll earn.”
The free government buffet in Michelle's populism extends to healthcare. She frames it as she has framed wages, salaries and education -- at 2:50
“Don’t get sick in this country. Not here. Americans are in debt not because they live frivolously but because someone got sick. And even with insurance the deductibles and premiums are so high that people are putting medications and treatments on credit cards. And they can’t get out from under. I could go on and on, but this is how we're living, people, in 2008. And things have gotten progressively worse throughout my lifetime, through Democratic and Republican administrations, it hasn't gotten better for regular folks.”
Of course, Michelle doesn't come out and say "get the rich." She uses the "we are all sinners" device of religious rhetoric. At 4:15
“We have lost the understanding that in a democracy, we have a mutual obligation to one another -- that we cannot measure the greatness of our society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure our greatness by the least of these. That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this race who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.”
And at 5:30
“So I am here right now because I am married to the only person in this race who has a chance of healing this nation.”
And at 5:50
“I say that because I’m a mother and a professional and a woman. I’m all these hats and I care about change. And what counts in this race, in my view, is character. It is character."
Elect Barak President and Find Salvation, hallelujah brothers and sisters!
Religious imagery is certainly not new in politics. But Michelle isn't working the "my religious beliefs inform my values" side of the sales room, just as her populism is government as Big Mommy to take care of our dreams and needs, so is government as God to take care of our spiritual needs. This distinction is either lost or ignored by liberals. The message from camp Obama is the nation has a sick soul and only Barack can heal it. It is as subtle a marketing device as having a boxom blonde draped over the hood of a concept car at a carshow.
Michelle then has to make the case of why we should be electing Barack as Pope President of the United States. She has to put meat in the thin gruel that is his experience. At 6:50
“I know what kind of choices he’s [Barack] made over a lifetime and that make him different. They make him special. And we won’t see this again. See this is a young man who grew up like regular folks, the product of a single parent household. His mother was 18 … 18 year old white woman trying to raise a black child in the 60s.”
At 7:36
“So Barack got to see the world in ways most Americans do not. Imagine a President of the United States who looks at the other countries with a level of respect and understanding without fear. Imagine a president of the United States who understands the impact that a great nation like ours has to a small village near Kogelo in Africa not because he has a policy briefing but because he has a grandmother in that little village.”
The circumstances of his birth are determinative? Did Reagan have a greater understanding of the impact of "this great nation on a small village" near Ballyporeen, Ireland because he had relatives there? Romantic nonsense promoted as unique qualification.
As in the NH rally quote above, Michelle's populism has a decidedly anti-capitalist flavor. From "values before profit" to "folks don't want much", making money is something fairly unseemly, fairly sinful in Michelle's estimation. And she is quite clear that it should be everyone's guideline. Part 3 at 0:30
“The first major decision Barak had to make in his life after college ‘Do I go to Wall Street and make money or do I work for the people?’ Barack worked as a community organizer in some of the toughest neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago helping young mothers find their voice and their power. Folks had a reason to be cynical because government had forgotten them long ago. There is no one in this race who can claim that kind of commitment to people on the ground. No one. And I would think that as a nation like ours we would demand that kind of engagement before you could even consider wanting to be President of the United States.”
At 1:25
“and many of the lawyers in this race made their millions before helping the people but not Barack … not because he couldn’t, because Barack was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. No one else can claim that distinction. No one else can. You talk about raisin’ the bar, set the bar, Barack leaped over the bar. But what did he do with those skills, he did not sell them to the highest bidder.”
The cynic in me wonders how much of Barack's decision to be a community organizer was more of political resume building than "money is icky." But I'm sure Obamessiah will cure me of my cynicism. At 2:25
“So he goes into the Illinois state senate for eight years. No other candidate in this race can claim that amount of years at the state legislative level. And wouldn’t it be nice to have a president who understood how federal law impacts local government.”
You're right Michelle. No one but a state senator, known for being "present", could ever understand how federal law impacts local government. Certainly not former governors or governors' wives, either.
Michelle works her audience skillfully. She knows its rhythm. She'll lighten intense moments with snippets of pointed humor. And she is intense. One gets a clear sense this is a person you do not want angry with you. Michelle uses her anger as another tool in her rhetorical utility belt. She lets it flash in her eyes and reins it in with grimaces and pursed lips when sharing with the audience of how "they" are treating her husband. Michelle warms to the theme of Barack as ultimately triumphant victim. She uses it to win sympathy, then cheers with this at 2:52
“We live in Chicago, people. Don’t worry about whether Barack is tough enough to handle the Republicans. We have seen it all.”
Michelle works the "Barak against the naysayers" angle to good effect, setting up the audience for a segue into what Barack demands from them. At 7:39
“Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation and that you move out of your comfort zone. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual – uninvolved, uninformed – you have to stay at the seat at the table of democracy with a man like Barack Obama not just on Tuesday but in a year from now, in four years from now, in eights years from now, you will have to be engaged.”
In part 4, Michelle starts the closing. For the first time, she moves from behind the podium, traveling with the mike and working the audience from the stage. She returns to the theme established from the start Do it for the children by relating a story of a ten year old girl she meets on the campaign trail who sees the election of Barack as meaning she can do whatever she wants when she grows up. Michelle uses it as the wrap ... not a summary of articulated policies, not a vision of specific goals that will be achieved, but one in which image is most important and not voting for Barack is a personal failing. At 3:55
“So we need to do a little dreaming. Dream of the day when a man like Barack Obama is standing in front of the capitol with his hand on the Bible taking the oath of office to become the next President of the United States. And just imagine what that image, what message that will send to all these little kids in this nation. And if we can do that here in this country image what we can do around the world, because you see we all know the world is watching. We have young kids all over the world we are looking to this nation and they are trying to figure out who we are and what we are going to become. We have a chance not just to make history but we can change the world. We can change the world. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can.”
Michelle gives a masterful performance. But tease away the rhetoric, explore the populist themes running underneath the exhortations to salvation and we are left with something not quite savory.
In the midst of the ubiquitous New York City garbage strikes of the 1970's, savvy citizens developed a strategy of wrapping their trash in fancy wrap and bows and leaving them unattended, soon swept away by gullible thieves. I'm reminded of the same human failing of wanting the unearned and the consequences when examining camp Obama. Merely an empty box is the least of the worries.
Posted by Darleen at February 18, 2008 10:02 AM
Comments
Nice analysis. They certainly are a formidable couple.
Posted by: Chris at February 18, 2008 06:33 PM