On the campaign trail, image making and speech making have always gone hand in hand. But rarely is that more true than when the candidate’s spouse delivers a speech at the national party convention.
If there was anything memorable about the 1996 Republican National Convention it was Elizabeth Dole, the former secretary of the labour department and the transportation department and the head of the American Red Cross walking among the delegates with a hand-held microphone and speaking about her husband, Bob Dole, ‘the man I loveâ€. It made the Checkers speech look like high-minded oratory. At the 2000 Democratic convention Tipper Gore’s most stirring moment came not when she introduced her husband to the crowd but instead when he delivered a smacker to the lips that made the national press corps squeal like 14-year-olds.
And then on Tuesday night, there was Michelle Obama’s maudlin and occasionally saccharin effort to make her husband and herself seem like an ordinary family that shares the same values as the rest of America. With so many misperceptions about her husband and so many Americans claiming that they still don’t know enough about the couple, Michelle Obama had her work cut out for her. In the end, she delivered a speech that was hardly stirring oratory, but from an image-making standpoint, it was an impressive performance.
It is clear that speech-making abilities in the Obama family are not restricted to Barack Obama. Michelle has at times come across as harsh and too direct, but there was an emotional edge to her delivery that was palpable. At times it even seemed as though she was on the verge of tears.
The goal of her speech was not only to humanise the perception of her husband, but also to humanise the perception of the Obama family. In depicting the challenges her own family faced and the sacrifices her parents made for two extraordinarily accomplished children, Obama’s story was, for lack of a better phrase, all-American. And just to make sure those lingering suspicions that Michelle somehow isn’t a patriot were dead and buried, she took the opportunity to remind voters of ‘why I love this countryâ€. No one ever suggested that image-making was subtle.
But of course there is a deeper subtext when an African-American stands at the top of a presidential ticket and it’s one that Obama gently addressed. Her family was depicted as one that had struggled for all they achieved. Her family’s values, like hard work and treating those around you with dignity and respect, were presented as colourblind and very much ‘Americanâ€.
And the final image of the Obama family, with dad on the big screen and mom and their adorable children, Malia and Sasha, on stage, offered viewers the alluring tableau of a traditional and attractive American family.
Each of these images, in their own way, sought to push back on the subconscious perceptions that some white people still have about African-Americans. The message was clear: ‘We might seem exotic … but we’re just like you.â€
If one of the key goals of the Democratic National Convention is to ease people’s fears about Barack Obama and ground his message of political change in basic American values, it’s hard to argue with the notion that the convention is off to a pretty good start. — The New York Times