Feb 10 09
The Non-Words of Politicians
- Dave Imperiale
This has nothing to do with politics. That would be in poor form. This has to do with non-words, and more specifically, Obama’s “umming.” There is nothing that makes someone sound consistently less confident than umming.
You will notice this almost never happens during his prepared speeches or comments. Not surprising — he’s prepared, knows what he wants to say and has probably practiced a dozen times. It happens every single time he takes Q&A because he has to think off the cuff. So here we have arguably one of the most gifted presidential orators in our history sounding less composed than a well prepared kid on a high school debate team every time he gets a tough question.
What’s particularly maddening is that his communication people don’t force him to fix this. For most people it’s incredibly easy to correct. Three, simple steps:
1. Hear yourself: you can’t correct umming until you hear yourself doing it. Listen for it. If you can’t hear it, record yourself. Once you hear yourself be cognizant of it.
2. Shut up and think: this is the hard part – being comfortable with the silence. But go back and watch one of his answers from last night and imagine him being silent and thinking instead of the long, drawn out umming fits.
3. Speak: after you’ve thought for the 1-2 seconds that feel like a lifetime (only to you), then speak like an intelligent person.
I promise that Favreu, Moran and staff spent days word humping his ten minute address before the questions. While they should probably remove the phrase “ginned up” from his lexicon and vet moronic reporters from asking questions about Arod…for the love of God, coach this guy to keep his mouth shut when he’s thinking about his answers. Or give me two hours with him.
