In Kerry speaking style, something presidential
WASHINGTON -- "People . . . "
As a way to begin a speech, it's not exactly "Friends, Romans, countrymen . . . " but it conveys much the same image: A man in a toga telling those around him what he thinks they should know.
John F. Kerry has begun orations that way, as in this response to a question on CBS's "Face the Nation" three weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: "People, if you want to do an act of patriotism, if you were going to buy a car, go out and buy that car. If you were going to do some trip, go do that trip."
Pompous. Stentorian. Overblown. Kerry's rhetorical style has come in for a whipping lately, with the consensus being that he sounds as if he's auditioning to read the Gettysburg Address at a Fourth of July pageant in a New England college town.
"He gets into a sort of da-da-da, emphasizing every fifth of sixth word," actress Dossy Peabody told the Globe's Don Aucoin last week.
"He is somebody whose speech was formed in boarding schools," offered Stanford University linguist Geoffrey Nunberg.
Kerry's public-address coaches seem to have a point. After all, the candidate's acceptance speeches after his primary-election victories went on for so long that Ted Kennedy would sway as if to avoid a fainting spell and Teresa Heinz Kerry would be caught stifling a yawn.
But as stiff and formal as Kerry's style may seem in an era of earthy Southern rhetoric, as practiced by Bill Clinton and to a lesser extent George W. Bush, voters in the primaries seemed to find Kerry's approach not only appealing but elevating. Presidential, even.
And as Kerry has, at times, shown, there are other ways to make a personal connection with voters than through open displays of empathy, like Clinton biting his lip or Bush clasping a rescue worker on the back.
Democratic primary voters could have chosen from a variety of rhetorical styles, some of them far more likely to impress a drama coach than Kerry's. Retired General Wesley Clark offered more evangelical uplift, like a football coach giving a motivational speech to a group of corporate executives. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina mimicked Clinton's conversational style, lightening up speeches with jokes, chatty asides, and rhetorical questions.
As recently as the end of last year, while former Vermont governor Howard Dean was raising audiences to their feet with his pithy put-downs of the Bush administration, Kerry was staging the type of long-form lecture for which he is now being criticized.
"Two roads are diverging in the New Hampshire woods and the nation looks to you to determine the character and direction of our party," Kerry intoned on Dec. 27, to an audience crowded into a tiny hall in Manchester, N.H., presumably because the campaign couldn't count on enough people showing up to a larger venue.
The surprise came three weeks later, when voters in Iowa took a fresh look at Kerry. Suddenly, his leaden delivery conveyed gravitas; his formal style bespoke his years of experience; the density of his arguments seemed appropriate to the complexity of the issues facing the country.
Then, as Kerry was winning victory after victory, his rivals became determined to knock him off his pedestal. They whispered that he had taken Botox injections. It was as if Dean, Clark, Edwards, and the rest were trying to wash away the craggy visage that voters were equating with wisdom and authenticity.
By most accounts, the event that turned around Kerry's fortunes wasn't even a speech but an event. Three days before the Iowa caucuses, a former crewmate of Kerry's from the Vietnam War called the campaign headquarters. The man, now a retired police officer and registered Republican, said he wanted to thank Kerry for saving his life more than 30 years earlier.
Kerry's aides immediately set about staging a public reunion. While Kerry campaigned elsewhere in the state, his staff decided to have the two old comrades meet in Des Moines, at an event at which Kerry was to receive the endorsement of the city's leading black activist.
Hundreds of reporters crammed into the modest meeting house, while neighborhood activists looked restless and uncomfortable. Kerry himself, traveling to the reunion by bus, seemed unnerved. As the funeral of the late senator Paul Wellstone had shown, a mixture of huge crowds, unruly emotions, and lack of planning can leave a lot of bruised feelings.
Kerry's dignity saved the day. He embraced his fellow veteran before the start of the event, then proceeded to praise the good work of the black activist and thank his hosts before introducing his former comrade. Kerry's remarks were short and sincere: He explained that he had done nothing but pull the injured man out of the river, something anyone would have done in the same situation.
The event was notable for its restraint. Kerry exuded neither stiffness nor friendliness, but something rarer in recent politics: an old-fashioned sense of maturity.
