Looks like Obama is now officially the nominee, not that Hillary's conceding that point - but she's pissed off and rightly so and will need some alone time to get reacquainted with reality - anyway, we have our nominees and they gave competing speeches last night and since only optics matter here - pundits may hash over the content of a speech, voters really only care about how it feels - so, just going by optics then, McCain doesn't stand a chance. Put simply, the man gives a horrible speech: his body language is all wrong and seems forced, he can't take his eyes off the teleprompter, the lines he's reading don't sound like they were written for him and he does a very poor job of delivering them - possibly a writer more in tune with McCain's speaking style could improve things but he gives the overwhelming impression of a guy who will never be comfortable giving a set speech. Obama on the other hand loves giving set speeches, oration is absolutely his thing and he exudes the confidence of a man who's convinced that what he's saying is not only brilliant, but sounds brilliant, and in his mind I imagine the two things are probably not adequately distinguished - certainly they are not distinguished in the mind of his audience. Drop him into the agora of a couple thousand years ago and I have no doubt Socrates would have lavished praise on his compelling style and delivery - and then ruthlessly pinned him against the wall as a sophist. Obama also exudes a fair amount of arrogance when speaking and it's hard to tell if that's because he is arrogant or because in his mind that's what power looks like - again, one imagines that in his mind the two things are confused. Like with a good actor, or, ironically, since the Obama folks hate the Clintons so much, Bill Clinton, these people have spent a lot of time thinking about how they sound and look when speaking, probably as a consequence of some deep, dark insecurity, and so when they present themselves publicly it all seems very smooth and natural when in fact it's completely manufactured: it seems natural because for the actor the illusion is reality. I guarantee you Obama, like Clinton and every have decent actor out there, has spent a lot of time speaking in front of a mirror - and I'm pretty sure McCain definitely has not. [not to draw some comparison here, but call to mind those pictures Hitler had taken of himself while practicing his speeches - people like this are very conscious of their image and the impression they're making] [It certainly sounds like youre comparing Obama to Hilter here] [No, not at all, that'd be absurd... I mean, certainly there are personality types that... no, no: just because Obama seems to inspire mindless devotion just like any half decent dictator would doesn't mean... well, it means something of course, but...]
So, there ya go - if it comes down to speech making McCain is doomed. Lucky for McCain, the press is so in love with Obama that his speeches may never make it to air - which leads one to think: it may be wise for McCain to fore go speech giving all together and just rely on a forum he seems much more comfortable with, the town hall meeting. From what I've seen Obama is not as good in this informal setting, he's too convinced that eloquence equals meaning and therefore tends to get ponderous. It would be a bold move on McCain's part but, if I were advising him, I'd keep him the hell away from a podium.
