http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_pb7lAKw6M
Hello People. Sorry for a long hiatus. Wanted to write for so long but you know paapi pet ke liye you have to postpone the things you love. Anyways I am back at your service.
So the topic that I’m writing today has been there in my mind for long just that I couldn’t get time to put my fingers on the keyboard to write my blog post. Anyways as they say better late than never :)
I am sure many of you would be following the US president election campaign. I am too one of them who likes to know how they conduct their poll campaign.
Don’t know at the end of the campaign who will be having the last laugh - Barack Obama or Mit Romney. Anyways let’s leave that to the time and US people to decide.
So as expected, the Republicans portrayed Barack Obama as a bad president. They criticised his record on jobs and the economy. But their speech lacked both soul and matter.
A week later, at the Democratic
convention, Bill Clinton made a speech in support of Obama. It was a
lesson that not just politicians but even managers should pay heed to.
His speech was not hollow like our leaders make but was full of facts
and figures. And most importantly it was presented in a way ordinary
people could understand. Clinton’s single minded theme throughout the
speech was around jobs. He didn’t delve into other topics just to keep
the argument clean and focused.
He opened his speech with a remark that would have won hearts of not just Michelle Obama but of millions of women across the world.
“I want to nominate a man cool on the outside but burning for America on the inside. A man who believes we can build a new American Dream economy driven by innovation and creativity, education and cooperation. A man who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama.”
Now let’s come back to Clinton’s speech theme - jobs. He kept returning to this, totting up numbers as he went:
“Since 1961, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our economy produced 66 million private sector jobs. What’s the jobs score? Republicans 24 million. Democrats 42 million!”
He didn’t put across his party’s opinion but facts in a language that ordinary working people could understand:
“In 2010, things began to turn around. In the last 29 months the economy has produced about 4.5 million private sector jobs. But last year, the Republicans blocked the President’s jobs plan costing the economy more than a million new jobs.
So here’s another jobs score: President Obama plus 4.5 million, Congressional Republicans zero.”
Another thing that Clinton kept in mind while delivering a fabulously simple but impactful speech was that ordinary people watch a lot of sport on TV. He knew that they understand numbers when they’re presented as sports scores and that’s the reason why he did it this way, time and again:
“Now there are 250,000 more people working in the auto industry. Governor Romney opposed the plan to save GM and Chrysler. So here’s another jobs score: Obama two hundred and fifty thousand. Romney, zero.”
This wasn’t cover-your-arse political doublespeak but a professional speech like a CEO would present to board members. Just straight blue-collar language. He wasn’t just chest-thumping about Obama’s achievements but showed guts to accept Obama’s mistakes too. He explained why some of Obama’s policies had failed. And who the real culprits were:
“President Obama also tried to work with Congressional Republicans on Health Care, debt reduction, and jobs, but that didn’t work out so well. Probably because, as the Senate Republican leader said, their number one priority was not to put America back to work, but to put President Obama out of work.”
And Clinton wrapped up his argument with a final score:
“Are we where we want to be?
No.
Is the President satisfied?
No.
Are we better off than we were when he took office, with the economy in free fall, losing 750,000 jobs a month?
The answer can only be YES.”
In leaving the subject, Clinton brilliantly summed up the situation for ordinary people:
“The Republican argument against the President’s re-election was pretty simple: we left him a total mess, he hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in.”
Then Clinton moved on to Medicare.
He countered the Republican accusations, again in plain language:
“The Republicans attacked the President for allegedly robbing Medicare of 716 billion dollars. Here’s what really happened. There were no cuts to benefits. None.
What the President did was save money by cutting subsidies to insurance companies that weren’t making people any healthier. He used the saving to close the donut hole in the Medicare drug program. Governor Romney wants to repeal the savings and give the money back to the insurance companies, to re-open the donut hole.”
Donut? In a political speech?
No, Clinton wasn’t out of his mind to draw a political reference to a donut. Clinton gave everyone a simple visual mnemonic for a complicated funding issue. His simple reason was that there’s a doughnut hole in Medicare funding. Obama wants to close the doughnut hole. Romney wants to make the doughnut hole bigger.
Finally, Clinton explained the problems with the Republicans’ tax cuts for the rich, in a simple powerful mnemonic:
“People ask me all the time how my government delivered four surplus budgets. I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic.
If the Republicans stay with their 5 trillion dollar tax cut, the arithmetic tells us that one of three things will happen:
1) Middle class families will see their tax bill go up two thousand dollars a year, while people making over 3 million dollars a year will get a 250,000 dollar tax cut.
2) They’ll have to cut programs that help middle class families and poor children, not to mention cutting investments in roads, bridges, science, technology and medical research.
3) They’ll do what they’ve been doing for thirty plus years now – cut taxes more than they cut spending, explode the debt, and weaken the economy.”
That was the build up to an unarguable fact:
“Remember, Republican economic policies quadrupled the debt before I took office and doubled it after I left.”
And ending on the brilliant mnemonic:
“We simply can’t afford to double-down on trickle-down.”
And like in advertising we have a tagline that sums up the brand promise Clinton’s last line for me was the killer one.
“We simply can’t afford to double-down on trickle-down.”
Most people know the Republican ‘trickle-down’ theory of growth which basically means make the wealthy even wealthier and some of it will eventually make its way down to the poor. Most people also know the expression for increasing a bet by 100% is “double down”. Clinton portrays the Republicans as flashy Las Vegas gamblers willing to risk everything on a crazy theory.
“We simply can’t afford to double-down on trickle-down.”
Clinton’s speech was like an ace that used factoids and policy ideas to ‘explain’ and score big politically. Mitt's speech should have done this. Also, the other reason that made Clinton’s speech so noteworthy was that he bears the imprimatur of economic success. Another thing that worked for him was that he didn’t have any personal chemistry with Obama. His failure/resistance to not become a ‘close friend’ of Obama gave Clinton’s speech that extra edge. A hidden message through Bill Clinton’s speech was that, just like Bill Clinton, vacillating voters need not love Obama to understand that he’s a better choice than Romney. Bill Clinton made the speech that Obama needed most.
One thing that I got out of his speech is that when you are vulnerable then you should be REASONABLE not EMOTIONAL. And your best friends do not always provide the best solution.
Hello People. Sorry for a long hiatus. Wanted to write for so long but you know paapi pet ke liye you have to postpone the things you love. Anyways I am back at your service.
So the topic that I’m writing today has been there in my mind for long just that I couldn’t get time to put my fingers on the keyboard to write my blog post. Anyways as they say better late than never :)
I am sure many of you would be following the US president election campaign. I am too one of them who likes to know how they conduct their poll campaign.
Don’t know at the end of the campaign who will be having the last laugh - Barack Obama or Mit Romney. Anyways let’s leave that to the time and US people to decide.
So as expected, the Republicans portrayed Barack Obama as a bad president. They criticised his record on jobs and the economy. But their speech lacked both soul and matter.
He opened his speech with a remark that would have won hearts of not just Michelle Obama but of millions of women across the world.
“I want to nominate a man cool on the outside but burning for America on the inside. A man who believes we can build a new American Dream economy driven by innovation and creativity, education and cooperation. A man who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama.”
Now let’s come back to Clinton’s speech theme - jobs. He kept returning to this, totting up numbers as he went:
“Since 1961, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our economy produced 66 million private sector jobs. What’s the jobs score? Republicans 24 million. Democrats 42 million!”
He didn’t put across his party’s opinion but facts in a language that ordinary working people could understand:
“In 2010, things began to turn around. In the last 29 months the economy has produced about 4.5 million private sector jobs. But last year, the Republicans blocked the President’s jobs plan costing the economy more than a million new jobs.
So here’s another jobs score: President Obama plus 4.5 million, Congressional Republicans zero.”
Another thing that Clinton kept in mind while delivering a fabulously simple but impactful speech was that ordinary people watch a lot of sport on TV. He knew that they understand numbers when they’re presented as sports scores and that’s the reason why he did it this way, time and again:
“Now there are 250,000 more people working in the auto industry. Governor Romney opposed the plan to save GM and Chrysler. So here’s another jobs score: Obama two hundred and fifty thousand. Romney, zero.”
This wasn’t cover-your-arse political doublespeak but a professional speech like a CEO would present to board members. Just straight blue-collar language. He wasn’t just chest-thumping about Obama’s achievements but showed guts to accept Obama’s mistakes too. He explained why some of Obama’s policies had failed. And who the real culprits were:
“President Obama also tried to work with Congressional Republicans on Health Care, debt reduction, and jobs, but that didn’t work out so well. Probably because, as the Senate Republican leader said, their number one priority was not to put America back to work, but to put President Obama out of work.”
And Clinton wrapped up his argument with a final score:
“Are we where we want to be?
No.
Is the President satisfied?
No.
Are we better off than we were when he took office, with the economy in free fall, losing 750,000 jobs a month?
The answer can only be YES.”
In leaving the subject, Clinton brilliantly summed up the situation for ordinary people:
“The Republican argument against the President’s re-election was pretty simple: we left him a total mess, he hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in.”
Then Clinton moved on to Medicare.
He countered the Republican accusations, again in plain language:
“The Republicans attacked the President for allegedly robbing Medicare of 716 billion dollars. Here’s what really happened. There were no cuts to benefits. None.
What the President did was save money by cutting subsidies to insurance companies that weren’t making people any healthier. He used the saving to close the donut hole in the Medicare drug program. Governor Romney wants to repeal the savings and give the money back to the insurance companies, to re-open the donut hole.”
Donut? In a political speech?
No, Clinton wasn’t out of his mind to draw a political reference to a donut. Clinton gave everyone a simple visual mnemonic for a complicated funding issue. His simple reason was that there’s a doughnut hole in Medicare funding. Obama wants to close the doughnut hole. Romney wants to make the doughnut hole bigger.
Finally, Clinton explained the problems with the Republicans’ tax cuts for the rich, in a simple powerful mnemonic:
“People ask me all the time how my government delivered four surplus budgets. I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic.
If the Republicans stay with their 5 trillion dollar tax cut, the arithmetic tells us that one of three things will happen:
1) Middle class families will see their tax bill go up two thousand dollars a year, while people making over 3 million dollars a year will get a 250,000 dollar tax cut.
2) They’ll have to cut programs that help middle class families and poor children, not to mention cutting investments in roads, bridges, science, technology and medical research.
3) They’ll do what they’ve been doing for thirty plus years now – cut taxes more than they cut spending, explode the debt, and weaken the economy.”
That was the build up to an unarguable fact:
“Remember, Republican economic policies quadrupled the debt before I took office and doubled it after I left.”
And ending on the brilliant mnemonic:
“We simply can’t afford to double-down on trickle-down.”
And like in advertising we have a tagline that sums up the brand promise Clinton’s last line for me was the killer one.
“We simply can’t afford to double-down on trickle-down.”
Most people know the Republican ‘trickle-down’ theory of growth which basically means make the wealthy even wealthier and some of it will eventually make its way down to the poor. Most people also know the expression for increasing a bet by 100% is “double down”. Clinton portrays the Republicans as flashy Las Vegas gamblers willing to risk everything on a crazy theory.
“We simply can’t afford to double-down on trickle-down.”
Clinton’s speech was like an ace that used factoids and policy ideas to ‘explain’ and score big politically. Mitt's speech should have done this. Also, the other reason that made Clinton’s speech so noteworthy was that he bears the imprimatur of economic success. Another thing that worked for him was that he didn’t have any personal chemistry with Obama. His failure/resistance to not become a ‘close friend’ of Obama gave Clinton’s speech that extra edge. A hidden message through Bill Clinton’s speech was that, just like Bill Clinton, vacillating voters need not love Obama to understand that he’s a better choice than Romney. Bill Clinton made the speech that Obama needed most.
One thing that I got out of his speech is that when you are vulnerable then you should be REASONABLE not EMOTIONAL. And your best friends do not always provide the best solution.
