As someone hugely interested in the art of communication and how it aids or mars human interaction, I was naturally very interested in observing how Bill Clinton, often known as “The Great Communicator”, would handle the 2012 Democratic Convention speech.
After all, there was a lot at play here: Clinton, the president who headed one of the most economically prosperous and stable governments, addressing a nation of embittered jobless voters; Clinton, the man whose career was almost destroyed because of a sex scandal, endorsing an attractive black man who probably threatened the white male voter; and Clinton, the husband of Hillary who lost her presidential nomination to Barack Obama.
The thing about speeches such as the one he had to deliver in Charlottesville was that it’s not what you say but how you say it that really matters. When the dust settles, the fact checkers, your opponents and the media are going to call your lies and errors, of course; but when you’re up there, it’s the touchy-feely things that can never be quantified — body language, facial expressions and even what you choose not to say (or forget to say) — which win the day.
In the highly polarised landscape of American elections, there was no doubt that Clinton’s speech was going to be watched with hawkish attention across party lines and in the media.
No surprises then that Fox News would refer to it later as “a good lawyer defending a guilty client” or that David Maraniss, Clinton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, said he saw “pure Clinton” in the speech and that “he was in his element”.
What struck me most about Clinton’s speech was not the masterly delivery in that hoarse too- many-cigars-smoked voice, or the animated way his eyes lit up, or even his use of both hands to emphasise his points.
What struck me in the artful orator’s performance was how he managed to juxtapose two very different and often contradictory positions in the same speech: the ‘I’m just one of you guys, a regular bloke, let’s have a beer’ persona with the elder finger-wagging ‘now you listen to me’ statesman stance that he had to muster if he wanted to get his message across.
And though spin doctors will go through his performance with a toothcomb many years from now, here’s why I feel Clinton managed the impossible: he used his body language to forge an instant connection with the audience when he said “I want to nominate a man cool on the outside” (here his posture changed, his arms were raised, palms facing the audience, almost to mimic a high-five) “but burning for America on the inside.” (His eyes narrowed)
Throughout, with colloquialisms, slang and slur, Clinton underlined his and Obama’s working-folk appeal.
But he used his words to achieve the ‘elder statesman of America’ approach with his emphasis on non-partisanship (“Though I often disagree with Republicans, I actually never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate our president and a lot of other Democrats” and “I am grateful to President George W Bush for PEPFAR, which is saving the lives of millions of people in poor countries”)
To combine a ‘I’m one of you guys’ message with ‘I’m Captain America’ — that’s masterly. Here’s looking at you Bill!
Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com
