Republican Speeches and Political Rhetoric

I was able to see both Ann Romney's and Chris Christie's speeches live last night.  Ann Romney, who is not used to giving speeches in public (especially before an audience of that size) did very well.  A couple lines, though, rang false.  The line about how Mitt Romney will work harder so that we can work a little less struck an off note (is that what Americans should aspire to?), and I would have appreciated some more concrete examples of Romney's love for his fellow man but overall, I thought it was good.

Christie was good too, and the implicit points he was making were well taken (the argument that conservative governors have turned their states around as opposed to what is happening nationally).  I thought it was interesting that immediately after the speech (I was watching Fox News coverage), Chris Wallace panned it and, to an extant, so did Charles Krauthammer.  It seemed as though there were not many people in the middle:  either you love or you hated it.  I also appreciated Christie making the point that in order to be a self-governing people, the political class has to treat the people like adults and not shield them from the hard truths.  I also agree with some of the conservative commentators I have read that not enough time was devoted to expounding on Obama's failures while in office, but I hold out hope that that may be coming in the next couple of days.

I later watched Gov. John Kasich's speech and thought it was good too (I have heard most of it before in one form or another).  His media savviness really shined when his teleprompter went down almost immediately and he had to go off of his paper copy he had with him at the podium.  One wonders if the US would go to Defcon 5 if the same thing was to happen to Obama.  But I digress.  

Overall though, the speeches also show the oftentimes problematic political rhetoric that is used by both sides today.  Steve Hayward has some great examples of this:

I have two grumps of my own about two specific tropes of current political rhetoric that show up in the speeches both political parties. The first is “we created jobs.” Most of the Republican governors who spoke yesterday—McDonnell, Kasich, and Haley—used this formula. The problem with “we created jobs” is that jobs are not “created” ex nihilo like God in Genesis, nor are they created by government. More precisely, we should say that jobs are generated—but they are generated overwhelmingly by private sector investment. To be sure, government policy helps create (a proper use of the term) a favorably investment climate for investment that produces new jobs, and that includes infrastructure rightly understood. 

In other words, the “created” language subtly abets Obama’s “you didn’t build that” argument. Better to convey the idea that government improves the conditions of freedom (that term again) that enables Americans to generate growth and employment, rather than making it seem like government is the entity “creating” the jobs. 

The second fingernails-on-blackboard trope is “grow the economy.” Never mind the dubious grammar of using “grow” as a transitive verb. This sounds like the economy is a plant, and if we just pour on some government water it will grow. Let us not forget that Bill Clinton was the originator of this phrase, and like “create jobs,” it abets the view that government is the prime mover of the economy. 

I say let us retire these two clichés of political rhetoric, and come up with more precise formulas that better convey a substantive conservative understanding of the primacy of the private sector over the public sector.

I would add one:  All the talk of needing "leaders" and looking for "leadership" falls flat and ultimately, does not fully describe the political virtues we are really looking for.  After all, you could plausibly claim that even Hitler was a great "leader."  The words the speechwriters are looking for is statesman and statesmanship.

It's always tough to win an argument when you are essentially using language that originated from the political thought of your opponent.  Republicans and conservatives need to do a much better job of this.