I Hereby Concede

Speech By: Just About Half the Candidates on the Ballot

Title: I Concede

Date: A Few Hours After the Polls Close on Election Day

Location: Campaign Headquarters / Some Hotel Ballroom

Occasion: Lost Election

Length (words): Various

Video Posted: Usually live

Analysis:
I’ve been in this situation. Although, to my great personal relief, not as frequently as I might have been, considering the competitiveness of the elections I’ve worked in. It’s a campaign speech writer’s most feared chore. And, in speech writing terms, often the most necessary.

It takes nothing for the winning candidate, surrounded by a swelling crowd of raucous supporters who share the same joyous elation, to stand up there and say the right things. If there is ever a time when it’s easy to be gracious, this is that time.

For the losing candidate, it’s a very different proposition. Facing a hushed room, except perhaps for a few muffled sobs, while people who last week claimed to be your friends, sneak out the back door so as not to be seen, it’s very easy to give vent to the harsh emotions a loser must endure.

Unscripted, you can wind up with scenes like Richard Nixon’s bitter - “You won’t have Nixon to kick around any more.” Or Howard Dean’s incongruous -  “The scream.”

Nothing in the law demands a losing candidate concede. You can silently sneak off to Tahiti that night and never be heard from again. It doesn’t matter, the person who got the most votes will still be sworn in to office at the beginning of the year.

Political candidates almost invariably possess a healthy amount of ego. An election takes place in front of your friends, family, and neighbors. It takes a special kind of ego to put one’s name out there for the public to accept or reject in a highly visible arena. That ego takes a substantial bruising when the public’s choice turns out to have been the latter.

So a concession speech is an opportunity to show a little class under a situation of great emotional distress. It’s the speech writer’s job to make sure that opportunity is not wasted.

Here are the elements of a successful concession -

• Announce you have called the winner to concede, and wish that person luck in office.
• Thank your family. If your campaign has been at all active, it has truly put a burden on them.
• Thank your supporters for all their hard work.
• Mention how you much you appreciate the opportunity to represent your party, and to meet as many voters as you did.
• Say thank you once more, then leave the stage.

Who to watch Tuesday night:
New York’s 23rd Congressional District - Who will concede - Hoffman or Owens?
Editor’s Note: Dede Scozzafava essentially conceded this morning, as I was writing this, and was quite classy in doing so. Not a result to be wished for, but successful nonetheless.
New Jersey Governor - Christie or Corzine?
New York Mayor - No, I am not predicting any suspense in this election, but how will Bill Thomson handle a moment he must have long known was coming?

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

To Be Continued ......

Elements - Structure

It seems so simple. A speech needs structure to hold it together, in the same way a railroad track needs ties and rails and spikes to hold it together.

There are three basic elements to the structure of any speech: an Introduction, the main Body, and the Conclusion. To those, might be legitimately added another, preliminary element -  the Preamble.

That fourth element is optional, however. It can be useful for establishing audience identification with the speaker, and for acknowledging other participants at an event. But it might not always be appropriate, and is certainly not essential.

Let’s consider the three essential elements that make up the framework of our speech:

Introduction - This sets up the premise or the theme that will be examined in the body of the speech. It’s also the part where, if you haven’t employed a preamble, you seek to establish that essential ingredient - shared identity with the audience.

Body - This is the main part of the speech. It’s where the arguments, or the justifications for the main premise of the speech are developed. This is where the factual bases for the premise are provided. Any statistics - and they should be used sparingly, to avoid confusing the audience - are provided here. The arguments in support of the premise are made here.

Conclusion - It’s where the whole thing is summed up. If there is a call to action - here is where it is  issued. If a stirring tribute, it is this point where the emotions of the audience should be most affected.

Let’s take another look at the speech we analyzed recently - Secretary of State Clinton’s address before the Council on Foreign Relations. How does it match the framework we’ve just defined?

The first paragraph, with its rather oblique reference to “the mother ship in New York,” is certainly a preamble. It is a beginning and certainly seeks to share some “inside humor.” Unfortunately, no one laughed.

As for the Introduction, it is less than a clear statement of principles, premise, or even promise:
“And with more states facing common challenges, we have the chance, and a profound responsibility, to exercise American leadership to solve problems in concert with others. That is the heart of America’s mission in the world today.”
That’s hardly a statement like Winston Churchill’s famous speech at Westminster college:
“The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with this primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future.”
His “Iron Curtain” speech is an appropriate contrast here, because it also has foreign relations as its topic.

The Body of Secretary Clinton's speech suffers from this initial lack of a clear introductory statement. It continues with an equal lack of clarity. While much is said, it is difficult to follow any clear, logical, path of reasoning.

It is a series of successive paragraphs, each offering something, but they don’t go anywhere. They don’t tie things together into a complete, comprehensible whole. These paragraphs use none of the classic rhetorical devices, such as repetition, to help the audience follow what is being said. Nothing stands out.

Again the contrast is with Churchill:
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”
With that one line, he coined a phrase that still resonates today.

Finally, her Conclusion. The final line is:
“Now all we have to do is deliver. Thank you all very much.”
It does nothing to inspire others on to action, to sum up the information in the speech, or to lay out a course of action the speaker intends to pursue.

In the end, a speech without a clear structure is like riding in a train that’s come off the track. You’ve still got an engine - but you won’t be going anywhere.

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom