Don’t deliver the speech at 3 in the morning like George McGovern in 1972 or publicly thank an unpopular incumbent like Hubert Humphrey did of President Lyndon Johnson in 1968. Avoid describing yourself as an extremist as Barry Goldwater did in 1964, never promise a tax increase as Walter Mondale did in 1984, and try not to blame Europe for America’s economic misery like Herbert Hoover did in 1932.
The acceptance speech by the party nominee is
a unique opportunity to appeal to millions of voters watching on television, but one tiny slip can be magnified into a catastrophic blunder.
“This is a very difficult environment to knock something out of the park,’’ said Peter Fenn, a Democratic consultant in Washington. “What candidates have to do is a cross between Rambo and Mary Poppins. They have to be tough on their opponents and show the differences between themselves and their opponents, but they have to highlight their softer side as well.’’
The Obama campaign has assiduously worked to minimize the risks. Obama wanted to repeat his dazzling 2008 acceptance performance in Denver when he spoke before a huge throng at an outdoor football stadium.
But with the possibility of thunderstorms racing through Charlotte tonight, Obama’s aides shifted his speech from the Carolina Panthers’ football stadium to the nearby indoor arena used for the convention’s first two nights, thus avoiding the spectacle of Obama trying to compete with lightning bolts and sheets of rain.
For a president like Obama seeking a second term, the gold standard of acceptance speeches includes Roosevelt in 1936 and Truman in 1948. In his 1936 acceptance speech in Philadelphia, Roosevelt never mentioned Republican opponent Alf Landon by name. Instead, he denounced the “economic royalists’’ who he said wanted to control the lives of ordinary Americans. “To some generations, much is given,” Roosevelt said. “Of other generations, much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.’’
Truman in 1948 flung a challenge to Republicans — also without mentioning GOP nominee Thomas E. Dewey. After complaining that the Republican-controlled Congress had not acted on increasing the minimum wage, spend more money to build schools, and improve housing, Truman told the delegates that his “duty as president requires that I use every means within my power to get the laws the people need,’’ then dramatically called Congress back into session.
“He did something unexpected,’’ said Jack Pitney, a professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College in California. “It was electrifying.”
By contrast, President George H.W. Bush, in 1992 could duplicate his performance from 1988, when his words about a “kinder and gentler nation” seemed to resonate with the electorate.
“It wasn’t awful,’’ Pitney said of Bush’s speech in Houston. “It was just a classic case that this pudding has no theme. Bush had a very difficult challenge because the economy was not doing well and a lot of the foreign policy issues he was counting on had dropped off the screen.”
Some candidates have used humor to make their points, with none better than Kennedy in 1960 against Republican Richard Nixon. During his acceptance speech in LosAngeles, Kennedy quipped, “It will not be easy to campaign against a man who has spoken or voted on every known side of every known issue. Mr. Nixon may feel it is his turn now after the New Deal and the Fair Deal, but before he deals, someone had better cut the cards.’’
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