#influential power

Even in the age of YouTube and the soundbite, Barack Obama has proved that soaring, sustained oratory still has great power. His victory address to crowds in Chicago last week was widely regarded as one of the finest speeches in modern politics, delivered by a master.

“There’s no doubt Obama looks like a classically trained rhetorician,” said Robert Harris, author of Imperium and an expert on Cicero, the great Roman orator depicted in the book. “The use of gesture, stillness of the body and economy of movement is very dramatic.

“He delivers a powerful mixture of classically trained cool and the heat of the traditional African-American church: his use of repetition, the whooping-up of the crowd, the response of the audience.”

The speech was crafted by a team of writers in America and Britain. The message it imparted was a subtle mix of historical reference and uplifting emotion. 

In a country founded on the principle that all men are created equal, Obama began his victory speech to the crowd in Grant Park in Chicago by recalling the lofty ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy – tonight is your answer.”

It evoked both America’s can-do spirit and the memory of the great civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King, who had a dream of equality 40 years ago.

“The speech is a Martin Luther King sandwich,” said Professor David Crystal, author of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. “He starts and ends with a reference to the dream. He doesn’t mention King by name, but, boy, is this speech in that rhetorical memory. There’s an overarching structure to this: begin, dream and question; end, dream and answer.”

Obama’s message of hope also echoes John F Kennedy’s and Robert Kennedy’s calls to greatness during difficult times, while the vision of a unified America recalls President Ronald Reagan.

Bryan Garsten, associate professor of political science at Yale University and author of Saving Persuasion: A Defence of Rhetoric and Judgment, said the tone was humble but clearly emphasised its place in history.

“He used the life span of a 106-year-old woman [Ann Nixon Cooper] to lift his audience out of the moment and give them perspective on the way this fits into the broader sweep of history,” said Garsten. “The distinctive feature of the speech is its combination of humility and hopeful empowerment. He sought to raise his own campaign slogan, ‘Yes, we can’, to the level of a ‘timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people’, while remaining humble himself.”

Obama deployed classic rhythms and structures. “One of the most famous rhetorical devices in the English language is the rule of three. Everybody who wants to be a successful speaker does it,” said Crystal.

“For example, in the paragraph about his wife, he says she is ‘the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation’s next first lady – Michelle Obama’. This triptych effect works perfectly because it allows for steady climax, then applause.

“Another device he uses is pairs. It’s a technique of political speechmaking that you don’t say one thing if you can say two. He says ‘people who waited three hours and four hours’. Just ‘waited hours’ would do. The pairing adds emphasis.

“His momentum is brilliantly paced. You’ve got to keep it going, so you take breaks. He could have ended on ‘change has come to America’ but he changed tack in order to give himself space. And so for the next four paragraphs we get personal stories, building to a mini-climax which caps the section: ‘But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you’.

“Every few paragraphs he changes theme, from the general to the specific, from the collective to the personal.” Will it be remembered as one of the speeches that mark turning points in history?

Harris believes so. “I think he’s up there with the great speakers in modern politics,” he said. “You’d have to mark it A or A+. The danger was he’d topple into hubris, but he always turned it around and said ‘this is your victory’.”