Part 5 of 7: A Preacher's Rhetoric Sings

As I told you before, I am a political junkie.

I am also a preacher's daughter. I grew up understanding the power of matching words to rhythm, of building an audience up and taking it away with you, of crafting incandescent images and searing sounds that bring the listener to his knees. That rhetoric is a skill and an art form and has not been seen in our politicians in many decades, although Ronald Reagan sometimes came close (he knew how to deliver lines).

But then it was 2004, at the Democratic National Convention, when some backwater politician still seemingly wet behind the ears got up on stage and showed them how it's done. It's not the flash-bang histrionics of certain public figures who get all fired up themselves but fail to move anyone else but the choir. The power of real rhetoric is harnessed and controlled, a measured force building and ebbing and irresistibly raising the hair on your arms and the tears in your eyes. It becomes a thunder, rolling with righteousness.

The rhythm, the cadence, the lilting delivery that becomes a booming drum roll--those are the hallmarks of true rhetoric. Martin Luther King, Jr. was undoubtedly a master of it. (Now he was a baptist minister I would have voted for in a heartbeat. Not for his experience or agenda, but for his character and courage.) And whether or not you're buying what he's selling, Obama does, on his best nights, show us how it's done.

Others agree:

Comments

[Denise]

Yes he does! He makes you WANT to believe in him, even if you feel the presidency should be based on credentials, not personality. Maybe that is why so many worshipped Reagan (a fact which still mystifies me). But that ability to inspire others to believe in their own power, individually and collectively, has historically been the mark of a true leader.

[Shelley]

As another PK, I had the same reaction. Recently I was listening to NPR and didn't realize I was listening to Obama, and I thought, Damn, that sounds like a preacher!