Not So Fast On President Obama's Speech [View all]

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from Noam Scheiber at TNR: http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/104086/not-so-fast-obamas-speech


The verdict on Obama's Cleveland speech is in, and it's not pretty. As the Politicker blog sums it up: "President Obama’s Speech Gets A Thumbs Down From Political Press Corps." The blog elaborates:

In the speech, President Obama outlined his view that this election is a choice between “two fundamentally different views of which direction America should take.” He characterized Mitt Romney’s vision as being the same as the “policies of the last decade,” specifically deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy while he described his own “vision for America” as boiling down to five things: “Education. Energy. Innovation. Infrastructure. And a tax code focused on American job creation and balanced deficit reduction.” President Obama also stressed that the economic crisis began during the Bush administration and that it “started growing again” after he took office and has since “continued to grow.”

All of these points have already been featured in the president’s other recent speeches. Between the pre-speech hype from the campaign, the lack of new material and the overall length of the speech reporters were clearly dissatisfied with end result.

If you read (the criticisms), I think what you mainly see is reporters missing the point. Yes, the speech hit a lot of familiar themes. And, yes, it was long and convoluted. As a work of rhetoric, it's not going to win any awards. But the speech wasn't written to be anthologized in the president's collected works. It was written to reset the election as a contrast between Obama's vision of what government should do and Mitt Romney's vision.

While Obama has tried to lay out that contrast before--most aggressively during a speech at an Associated Press lunch in April--the last several weeks have featured all manner of detours, like Romney's record at Bain and in the Massachusetts state house, to say nothing of the president's musings on the private-sector economy.

The speech was an effort to revive the contrast in visions as the central theme of the campaign. If it accomplishes that--and, more importantly, if voters prefer Obama's vision to Romney's--then it will have been a success. And if not, it will have been a failure. But that has very little to do with the stylistic or headline-grabbing merits of the speech itself. There will be plenty of time for pithy formulations and new policy proposals. In the meantime, the political press corps should get over itself. These things aren't entirely about our viewing satisfaction, hard as it may be to believe.

read more: http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/104086/not-so-fast-obamas-speech


from 'The only adult in the room': http://blackwaterdog.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/when-you-let-obama-be-obama/

When you let Obama be Obama

I would have love this speech even if only for the delivery. There was a look in PBO’s eyes that I did not see for a while. But it was there today. Gladly, I don’t need to settle only fr the delivery, because this was just a good speech. Not his greatest ever, but his best in a long time. He laid down the clear difference between the visions, he was aggressive, unapologetic (finally), there were no hesitations, he was sharp and clear, yet stayed presidential – And above all, it was raining truth, facts, numbers, honesty and vision/optimism. Coming right after Romney’s doom and gloom lying piece of crap speech to 100 white men – The contrast could not be more clear. More of this please.

Oh, he kicked the media in the butt, which can explain Jonathan Alter’s sad face. Obviously we didn’t see the same speech. But Andrew Sullivan did see it: http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/06/live-blogging-obamas-cleveland-speech.html

My bottom line? A home run. Simply constructed, carefully reframed, aggressive while positive: the Obamaites have been listening to critics and are responding. If this is his message, and if he is able to keep articulating it this clearly, he will win. And in my view, the experience of the last thirty years is that he should win . . .

read more: http://blackwaterdog.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/when-you-let-obama-be-obama/


full transcript of Obama’s speech on the economy in Cleveland, Ohio
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/full-transcript-of-obamas-speech-on-the-economy-in-cleveland-ohio/2012/06/14/gJQAdY10cV_print.html




U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign event at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio June 14, 2012.