Obama’s Challenge and Toobin’s Error
By Aaron Reid
May 10, 2009
“We will extend a hand, if you are willing to unclench your fist.” – Barack Obama, January 20th, 2009.
On the day of Obama’s inauguration, the best political team on television largely panned Obama’s speech as being “not great” (notable exceptions were Republican leaning analysts Castellanos and Gerger). The CNN panel saw the speech as containing no great delivered lines like “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” or “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”.
Jeffrey Toobin in particular thought that Obama would be disappointed in his performance because it is so important to Obama to speak well, and on this historic day, he felt that Obama would have wanted to deliver his best – and clearly, according to Toobin, he didn’t.
The great irony here is that we are even at a point where we could be disappointed by the Obama inauguration speech. The speech, by any modern standard, was great. But Obama’s challenge here and moving forward, is that he is such a great speaker that he has changed the standard. He has raised the bar. If January 20th was the first time the nation had heard Obama speak, the speech would have been heralded. But no, we had already heard the victory speech in Chicago, the nomination acceptance speech in front of 80,000 in Denver, the race speech in Philadelphia, and the “Yes, we can.” speech after losing the NH primary (we even heard that one set to music and sung by the chorus of our most popular and beautiful young stars). And so, the American public has come to expect oratorical wizardry in Obama’s delivery. The American public has come to expect to be emotionally moved by Obama’s rhetoric.
After inauguration, and with 100 days and three prime time addresses behind him, this is where Obama’s greatest rhetorical challenge lies. The human emotional system is sensitive to changes in its environment. The emotional system acclimates to what it experiences on a consistent basis (this is true for both positive and negative emotions: in the positive emotional realm, think about the throes of new love dissipate over time; and, in the negative emotional realm, consider learned helplessness or the Stanford Prison Experiment). So, in order to catch attention, and motivate behavior, environmental stimulus needs to deliver something that is unexpected. That is, the environment needs to surprise and delight it’s audience. When Obama first arrived on the scene, he was all surprise and delight, in a big way. But his audience, reacting in it’s fundamentally human way, has gradually acclimated to Obama’s new emotional heights, and now it expects more. Enter Jeffrey Toobin’s comments on the Obama inauguration speech not being great, and you have a great example of human emotional acclimation (as well as an example of how we as humans are largely unaware of what effects our emotions and drives our behavior).
The challenge for Obama, is to figure out how to consistently surprise and delight his audience when they’ve already become accustomed to his best. This, by they way, is a fundamental marketing truth, it is true for humans in the mate selection market, true for companies pitching their products to consumers, and true even for our best political leaders. The challenge for Toobin and the rest of the best political team on television at CNN, is to recognize this fundamental human truth, and think about how it might influence their commentary to the public.
On the day of Obama’s inauguration, the best political team on television largely panned Obama’s speech as being “not great” (notable exceptions were Republican leaning analysts Castellanos and Gerger). The CNN panel saw the speech as containing no great delivered lines like “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” or “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”.
Jeffrey Toobin in particular thought that Obama would be disappointed in his performance because it is so important to Obama to speak well, and on this historic day, he felt that Obama would have wanted to deliver his best – and clearly, according to Toobin, he didn’t.
The great irony here is that we are even at a point where we could be disappointed by the Obama inauguration speech. The speech, by any modern standard, was great. But Obama’s challenge here and moving forward, is that he is such a great speaker that he has changed the standard. He has raised the bar. If January 20th was the first time the nation had heard Obama speak, the speech would have been heralded. But no, we had already heard the victory speech in Chicago, the nomination acceptance speech in front of 80,000 in Denver, the race speech in Philadelphia, and the “Yes, we can.” speech after losing the NH primary (we even heard that one set to music and sung by the chorus of our most popular and beautiful young stars). And so, the American public has come to expect oratorical wizardry in Obama’s delivery. The American public has come to expect to be emotionally moved by Obama’s rhetoric.
After inauguration, and with 100 days and three prime time addresses behind him, this is where Obama’s greatest rhetorical challenge lies. The human emotional system is sensitive to changes in its environment. The emotional system acclimates to what it experiences on a consistent basis (this is true for both positive and negative emotions: in the positive emotional realm, think about the throes of new love dissipate over time; and, in the negative emotional realm, consider learned helplessness or the Stanford Prison Experiment). So, in order to catch attention, and motivate behavior, environmental stimulus needs to deliver something that is unexpected. That is, the environment needs to surprise and delight it’s audience. When Obama first arrived on the scene, he was all surprise and delight, in a big way. But his audience, reacting in it’s fundamentally human way, has gradually acclimated to Obama’s new emotional heights, and now it expects more. Enter Jeffrey Toobin’s comments on the Obama inauguration speech not being great, and you have a great example of human emotional acclimation (as well as an example of how we as humans are largely unaware of what effects our emotions and drives our behavior).
The challenge for Obama, is to figure out how to consistently surprise and delight his audience when they’ve already become accustomed to his best. This, by they way, is a fundamental marketing truth, it is true for humans in the mate selection market, true for companies pitching their products to consumers, and true even for our best political leaders. The challenge for Toobin and the rest of the best political team on television at CNN, is to recognize this fundamental human truth, and think about how it might influence their commentary to the public.
