Replies

| 29 Jul 2004 | Joseph Sobran

After listening to two nights of the Democrats’ Boston convention, I thought of the expression “It’s all over but the shouting.” This convention was almost all shouting.

I’m writing on the final day; John Kerry will give his acceptance speech tonight. I’m going to take a wild stab and predict that he will shout too.

He always does. Like his mentor Ted Kennedy, Kerry understands oratory as an assault on the audience’s eardrums. Kerry’s problem as a campaigner is said to be that he creates no excitement. I’d say his problem is that when he speaks, he seems to be the only one in the room who is excited. And you’re not at all sure he means it.

The Democrats, still aping the overrated John F. Kennedy, have never learned to lower their voices. They still don’t realize that when you have a microphone, you don’t have to yell every sentence. Or that when you make a speech, you should build slowly to a climax. Volume alone doesn’t give the crowd a thrill; it may give them a headache. Most of the Democrats’ speakers were would-be rabble-rousers who could hardly rouse their own rabble. Mere decibels don’t turn cliches into eloquence.

Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra were great recording artists — as distinct from great singers — because they realized that with the mike and amplification they could afford to sing softly, giving each word and note its own weight. Their understated styles made them sensationally popular.

Franklin Roosevelt understood the principle and used radio to speak informally to a national audience with tremendous effect. He gave Fireside Chats, not Fireside Shouts.

But this year, Democrat after Democrat blasted our ears with forced and false passion. The much-heralded John Edwards, a trial lawyer who seems to regard the American public as one gigantic hick jury, roared his own acceptance speech, inviting the crowd to roar back. Barack Obama, also a heralded newcomer to national politics, adopted the stentorian style of the occasion.

One shining exception to this noisy monotony was the son of a Republican president. I disagreed with Ron Reagan, but I couldn’t help enjoying listening to him. He spoke as if having a quiet conversation with reasonable people. His style is very different from his legendary father’s, but he has the same gift for making you pay attention to what he says.

So, oddly enough, does Teresa Heinz Kerry. Her husband could take lessons from her. In her own low-key speech — by no means a great one — she conveyed a simple personal warmth, in striking contrast to all the screeching partisan harpies who had preceded her. She spoke like someone who really listens to others. Nobody has ever said that of her husband, who, like Ted Kennedy, hardly seems to listen to himself.

Mrs. Kerry didn’t try to excite passion. She chose a tone of quiet sincerity that was far more effective than the prevailing hot-button demagoguery. As with young Reagan, I found myself hanging on every word. You can tell at once when a speaker respects the audience’s intelligence.

It’s really that simple: Respect your audience, and try to earn their respect. John Kerry will never understand what his wife understands instinctively. He keeps trying to stir a passion he doesn’t feel himself through sheer hortatory bellowing. The charge that he is “aloof” and “Brahmin” really means that everyone feels his insincerity. It’s hard enough to endure someone who talks down to you. Kerry is worse: He shouts down to you.

G.K. Chesterton defended Charles Dickens against the charge of literary demagoguery by saying that Dickens didn’t just give the people what they wanted; he wanted what the people wanted. Kerry is trying to give us what we want, without seeming to want it himself.

Kerry is running a strangely joyless campaign. The shouting masks a forced optimism. He has the air, and even the careworn face, of a deeply disappointed man. Even his smiles seem forced. He may yet win the presidency by default; but why does he want to be president? Does anyone know?

None of the shouters at the Boston convention even began to touch the enigma of John Kerry. The real Kerry, if there is one, remains elusive. Many of his supporters spoke of his war record. But nobody suggested that he is a happy warrior.