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September 1, 2004
Schwarzenegger shatters my low expectations
As actor-turned-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger got set to speak last night at the Republican National Convention I expected his speech would be only a tad better than farcical.
He has that famously stilted delivery and somehow he looks odd without an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder (so of course I imagined him giving his speech with said rifle).
But the California Governor delivered the kind of speech that is rare in politics today. It was overwhelmingly positive - sure, there was the implications that Democrats are soft on terrorism, but that was to give CNN something to prattle on about. More interestingly though, he spoke about values and principles.
Politicians don't give values/principles speeches anymore despite the fact most of the best speeches ever delivered fall into this category (Kennedy and Churchill used metaphors to outline their principles - Schwarzenegger isn't quite ready for that technique yet). I think one reason we see so few speeches of this kind is that they aren't newsworthy. "Republican believes in smaller government" is hardly a headline and with so much of modern politics focussed on the seven second sound bite, saying things that are not going to get coverage is a waste of energy.
All of this is terribly unfortunate. It is much more difficult for me to be cynical about Mr. Schwarzenegger's motives when he outlines them as clearly as he did last night. Similarly, I think if more politicians told us what they believed people might be less cynical about politics in general.
Posted by maxthecat on September 1, 2004 at 11:24 AM
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Filed in: Politics / United States
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