Analysis: Obama’s Victory Speech
Here’s James Woods in The New Yorker with a well-thought-out analysis of Obama’s November 4th victory speech:
Any victorious election speech must turn campaign vinegar into national balm, must move from local conquest to national triumph, and Obama cunningly used this necessity to expand epically through American space and time. Behind his speech were the ghosts of Lincoln’s First Inaugural, which moved anxiously over “every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land,” and his Second, which promised to “bind up the nation’s wounds.”
Obama’s speech (it’s fair to assume the words were That One’s as much as his 26-year-old-speechwriting wunderkind) moved through time and biography to the present day. His speech has echo’s of Lincoln and Martin Luther King. A lesser speaker (say, oh I don’t know, the current President and Republican nominees for President and Vice-President) would not have been able to carry this off.
The McCain-Palin critique that their opponent is “Just Words” panders to an inarticulate bias in American culture. Part of Obama’s genius as a speaker is that he acknowledges the bias but does not let it limit him.
The audience loved it.
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2008 Election Night Speech Analysis – Obama and McCain…
Tuesday, November 4, 2008. History was made.
The immediate impact is tremendous, etched on the faces of millions as they watched the results and listened to the speeches. The longer-term impact has yet to be written.
While we can’t accurately pr…
By Six Minutes on 11.13.08 4:00 pm
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