I remember being greatly impressed with Obama's nomination acceptance speech to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Obviously I was not the only one. It was brilliant and it's dissected phrase by phrase and gesture by gesture here. Is this a "how to" book like the cover promises? Well no. You are not going to be able to speak like Obama just by reading this. The guy clearly has a lot of talents that run beyond speech writing. In fact, I'm not even sure whether this book teases out the obvious question about how many of his speeches were written by other speech writers and how much he wrote himself. (I've just checked it out...he did have a speechwriting team...the main writer being Jon Favreau but the speeches were generally an iterative process with Obama). In some ways I was a bit disappointed by this book but maybe it was actually pointing out the obvious and that was Obama pretty much stayed "on-message" most of the time. And the message was: There is one America, And America can do better than we've been doing, He raises inequality in America in health care , in opportunities for education, with social security. Time and again he comes back to these issues and emphasises that we can do this.
What I didn't fully appreciate ...and this book brings it out that Obama brings a whole host of rhetorical tricks...voice modulation, pauses, gestures, ..even the way he strides on stage ...into his presentation. Something else that I didn't appreciate was that very early in his career he was told to speak more like a "black man" and presumably he developed this from the churches he attended. Wherever he picked up his "tricks of the trade" he learned them well. I recall one of the late night shows..... which used to regularly parody George Bush's mangling of he language....... bemoaning the fact that Obama spoke so clearly, so confidently and with such mastery of the language that they were not going to be able to repeat their parodies with Obama.
It's impossible not to be impressed when you see his 2008 speech taken apart and analysed. The way it builds, the way he builds links with his audience, how he creates empathy, how he weaves in patriotic feelings, and biblical quotes, how he builds up John McCain before demolishing him, his references to what is wrong with America and his clever self-references showing that he too knew what it was to grow up poor and to suffer discrimination. He offers solutions, he offers hope, he offers a brighter future. And as they say in the postscript to this analysis: "The masterful and powerful delivery solidified Obama's place as one of the most effective and outstanding orators of recent times". And having a great natural baritone voice was a good start from which to build.
Can you speak like Obama now? Can you even draft a speech like his? Hmm almost certainly not but I did learn a lot and learned some of the tricks of the trade....especially doing a bit of research into your audience beforehand and taking the trouble to build empathy with that audience. That seems to me to be important. Not being mean and harsh but being generous to your opponents also seems to be part of his appeal. And this can easily be adopted.
So, all in all, an interesting book. It shows you how Obama had such impact but not necessarily, how you might be able to achieve the same. I give it four stars. ( )