I Love the Smell of Rhetorical Analysis in the Morning: Obama's Economy Speech

For several days now I've promised an analysis of Obama's big economy speech from last week. The text of the speech is available here. 


Blogosphere reactions to the speech have been mixed.


Andrew Sullivan loved it:

My bottom line? A home run. Simply constructed, carefully reframed, aggressive while positive: the Obamaites have been listening to critics and are responding. If this is his message, and if he is able to keep articulating it this clearly, he will win. And in my view, the experience of the last thirty years is that he should win. If I have to choose between a governing philosophy espoused by Bill Clinton or one espoused by George W. Bush, it's a no-brainer. And I can't stand Bill Clinton.

Ezra Klein, who frequently reminds us that individual speeches don't actually matter, likes the underlying strategy:

One speech doesn’t change an election, and this one won’t, either. But the Obama campaign’s line of attack does point to a difficulty for the Romney campaign in the coming months: Where can they show a sharp break with the policies of the Bush administration? Spending cuts, perhaps, but the more specific they get on what they’ll cut, the most voter opposition they face. When Lanhee Chen, the Romney campaign’s policy director, was asked this question on Bloomberg, he replied by noting Romney’s more confrontational attitude toward China. But voters may want more than that.

Sullivan also rounded up some of the less favorable reactions.


I'd like to make a few preliminary points before diving in.



First, I'm analyzing the speech from a rhetorical strategy perspective. I'm not attempting to analyze policy proposals or engage in a debate over economic theory (not right now, at least). The speech has seen a lot of criticism on the grounds that it didn't propose any "big new ideas." I think that particular line of attack is silly. First of all, Presidential candidates have fairly little control over the precise legislative contours of the broad "plans" they propose. Second, with an intransigent Republican House and filibuster-stifled Democratic Senate, no policy will matter until after the election. Third, the policy proposals of both parties are fairly well fleshed out at this point. But neither side can muster the political clout to implement any of them (Obama's immigration move last week aside). 


Plus I'm a wishy-washy advocate of emotional politics; I generally don't believe policy proposals matter to the public, except perhaps as symbols (though policy outcomes certainly do!). 


I'd also like to note that I tend to agree with Ezra Klein: speeches don't matter. But the broader communications strategies of entire campaigns do matter. So when I say "I'm analyzing the speech from a strategic-rhetorical perspective," I mean "I'm analyzing this speech to see how it foreshadows the Obama team's economic messaging strategy during this election". 


Let's dive in. I won't be going through the speech line by line, just picking out some notable bits.


Obama begins by alluding to his "private sector is doing fine" gaffe:

So, Ohio, over the next five months, this election will take many twists and many turns, polls will go up and polls will go down, there will be no shortage of gaffes and controversies that keep both campaigns busy and give the press something to write about. You may have heard I recently made my own unique contribution to that process.

Good humored way to acknowledge the gaffe without repeating it, though nothing too notable here. I should mention that we can see one of Obama's favorite rhetorical ploys in this selection. He loves acknowledging the silliness of politics ("give the press something to write about"), implicitly placing himself above the fray. 


Now it starts to get interesting:

And in the coming weeks, Governor Romney and I will spend time debating our records and our experience, as we should. But though we will have many differences over the course of this campaign, there is one place where I stand in complete agreement with my opponent: This election is about our economic future.

Yes, foreign policy matters, social issues matter. But more than anything else, this election presents a choice between two fundamentally different visions of how to create strong, sustained growth; how to pay down our long-term debt; and most of all, how to generate good, middle-class jobs so people can have confidence that if they work hard, they can get ahead.

We've seen a lot of suggestions over the past few weeks that Obama's recent moves on gay marriage and immigration are part of strategy to distract voters from the stagnated economy. These suggestions feel plausible, but Obama's rhetoric doesn't fit that sort of approach. Note that he's explicitly casting this election as an economic debate. But why? Let's find out: 

Now, this isn’t some abstract debate. This is not another trivial Washington argument. I have said that this is the defining issue of our time and I mean it. I said that this is a make-or-break moment for America’s middle class, and I believe it.

Now, these challenges are not new. We’ve been wrestling with these issues for a long time. The problems we’re facing right now have been more than a decade in the making.

We're starting to see the borders of a communications strategy here. Obama will need to tie recent lackluster economic performance to the Bush years, to Republican governance. But he can't look like he's finger pointing at Bush, which might suggest an abdication of responsibility. So, uncharacteristically for Obama, he's responding to this dilemma with an aggressive rhetorical approach:

And what is holding us back is not a lack of big ideas. It isn’t a matter of finding the right technical solution. 

Both parties have laid out their policies on the table for all to see.

What’s holding us back is a stalemate in Washington between two fundamentally different views of which direction America should take. And this election is your chance to break that stalemate.

Remember when Obama liked to emphasize commonality and good-faith compromise? He's had that approach thrown back in face about a dozen times too many. Looks like we'll see (thankfully, from my lefty perspective) a much different strategy in this election. Instead of commonality, Obama is emphasizing a fundamental choice between two radically different economic philosophies. I like this strategy, which is founded on a more accurate view of American politics. It's also helpful for more specific tactical reasons, which I'll get to momentarily. 


He has to begin by defining the problem: 

Now, that debate has to begin with an understanding of where we are and how we got here. Long before the economic crisis of 2008 the basic bargain at the heart of this country has begun to erode. For more than a decade, it had become harder to find a job that paid the bills, harder to save, harder to retire, harder to keep up with rising costs of gas and health care and college tuitions.

You know that. You lived it.

Obama's "go big" approach has a specific tactical advantage. It allows him to shift the discussion away from the Obama administration's particular response to the financial crisis (which, whatever the economic and political realities of the situation, will be regarded by voters as inadequate) toward a debate over broader governing philosophies, over the decline of the middle class.  We see this "decade" phrasing numerous times throughout the speech. I suspect it's designed to separate the terrible 2000's from the booming 90's, associating negative economic results with Republican dominance while not directly pointing an accusatory finger at Bush. 


The President proceeds to define the right's economic approach. Here's a brief excerpt from that portion of the speech:

We were told that huge tax cuts, especially for the wealthiest Americans, would lead to faster job growth. We were told that fewer regulations, especially for big financial institutions and corporations, would bring about widespread prosperity. We were told that it was OK to put two wars on the nation’s credit card; that tax cuts would create a enough growth to pay for themselves.

That’s what we were told.

This language is designed to tie Romney's policy proposals to the Bush years. Over the coming months, as Klein mentioned, we're going to see Obama challenge Romney to differentiate his approach from the Bush years. It also places Obama alongside the innocent citizenry: "we." Like the American people, he patiently listened to GOP economic theory and witnessed disaster. 


I like this bit:

Without strong enough regulations, families were enticed and sometimes tricked into buying homes they couldn’t afford.

We'll see a constant framing battle on the housing crisis throughout the election: "irresponsible home buyers" versus "tricked into buying homes they couldn't afford."   More broadly, Obama will need to create a narrative where the financial crisis finds its ancestry in reckless financiers rather than feckless government-subsidized home buyers.


More of that framing attempt: 

For a while, credit cards and home equity loans papered over the reality of this new economy -- people borrowed money to keep up.  But the growth that took place during this time period turned out to be a house of cards.  And in the fall of 2008, it all came tumbling down -- with a financial crisis that plunged the world into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. 

Again, Obama doesn't condemn folks with nasty personal financial problems. They are symptoms, not diseases. They "borrowed money to keep up." I think this rhetoric has some real potential; the average voter, I think, will be more far more amenable to viewing banks, not homeowners, as the bad guys of the financial crisis. We're also going to see this Great Depression comparison all the time. Obama will need to emphasize the depth of the recession, not the tepid recovery. This approach allows Obama to give himself credit for contending with a historic economic crisis without risking appearing glib about the lackluster recovery (as in his recent gaffe):

Here in America, families’ wealth declined at a rate nearly seven times faster than when the market crashed in 1929.  Millions of homes were foreclosed.  Our deficit soared.  And nine million of our citizens lost their jobs -- 9 million hardworking Americans who had met their responsibilities, but were forced to pay for the irresponsibility of others.

Obama loves to try to capture "responsibility" from the conservatives. He likes to sell programs like Social Security and Medicare as rewards after a lifetime of responsibility and hard work, not simple give-aways. This bit, of course, ties back into his framing of the crisis itself: it's Big Finance, not homeowners, who were "irresponsible." But once again, Obama wants to talk about this specific crisis as little as possible; he wants to engage it as part of a broader trend of growing inequality:

But let’s be clear:  Not only are we digging out of a hole that is 9 million jobs deep, we’re digging out from an entire decade where 6 million manufacturing jobs left our shores; where costs rose but incomes and wages didn’t; and where the middle class fell further and further behind. 

Obama wants an argument over history and the future, not the present. This approach also carries the benefit of acknowledging that the economy felt brutal to the middle class (particularly the rural, manufacturing-centered middle class) long before the financial crisis began. 


He continues to (accurately) characterize Romneyomics by pointing to the specific programs which would be cut under Romney's plan, and by (accurately) pointing to the high-income focus of Romney's proposed tax cuts. We'll see this battle a lot in the coming election as well. Romney will want to keep the debate over government abstract ("more government" is always bad in the abstract, when we can imagine lazy bureaucrats and wasteful programs). Obama will want to make the argument as program-specific as possible (almost every individual federal program is popular; most government employees are involved in basic service provision). 


Again, Obama wants to make this election about a "big choice." This language feels fairly aggressive for the normally staid Obama: 

That’s what they believe.  This is their economic plan.  It has been placed before Congress.  Governor Romney has given speeches about it, and it’s on his website. 

 There is nothing new -- just what Bill Clinton has called the same ideas they’ve tried before, except on steroids. 

Now, I understand I’ve got a lot of supporters here, but I want to speak to everybody who's watching who may not be a supporter -- may be undecided, or thinking about voting the other way.  If you agree with the approach I just described, if you want to give the policies of the last decade another try, then you should vote for Mr. Romney. 

You should take them at their word, and they will take America down this path.  And Mr. Romney is qualified to deliver on that plan.  (Laughter and applause.)  No, he is.  (Applause.)  I’m giving you an honest presentation of what he’s proposing.   

Now, I'm looking forward to the press following up and making sure that you know I'm not exaggerating.  

We're also going to see Obama mention Bill Clinton every few seconds for the next five months. Clinton symbolizes the vigorous nineties economy and serves as living proof that higher taxes don't equate to reduced growth.  

Obama now moves to articulate his own vision:

We can’t afford to jeopardize our future by repeating the mistakes of the past -- not now, not when there’s so much at stake.  (Applause.)  

I've got a different vision for America.  (Applause.)  I believe that you can’t bring down the debt without a strong and growing economy.  And I believe you can’t have a strong and growing economy without a strong and growing middle class.  (Applause.)  

This has to be our North Star -- an economy that’s built not from the top down, but from a growing middle class, that provides ladders of opportunity for folks who aren't yet in the middle class.
You see, we’ll never be able to compete with some countries when it comes to paying workers lower wages or letting companies do more polluting.  That’s a race to the bottom that we should not want to win.  (Applause.)  Because those countries don't have a strong middle class; they don’t have our standard of living.  (Applause.) 

The race I want us to win -- the race I know we can win -- is a race to the top.  I see an America with the best-educated, best-trained workers in the world; an America with a commitment to research and development that is second to none, especially when it comes to new sources of energy and high-tech manufacturing.  I see a country that offers businesses the fastest, most reliable transportation and communication systems of anywhere on Earth.  (Applause.) 

This stuff is pretty boiler plate Obama rhetoric. I like it as an introduction to an articulation of Obama's vision. I particularly like the bit on "lower living standards," which implicitly associates the GOP economic approach with a "cheapskate" economy un-befitting of American greatness. 


But here, I think, the Obama rhetorical approach needs some pretty substantial refinement.. Obama has always been skilled at framing his opponent as radical (not much of a stretch these days) or childish, while presenting himself as moderate and serious. But he's always been less skilled at actually providing an attractive statement of the liberal vision. 


He gives us this sort of language: 

I don’t believe that giving someone like me a $250,000 tax cut is more valuable to our future than hiring transformative teachers, or providing financial aid to the children of a middle-class family.  (Applause.) 

I don’t believe that tax cut is more likely to create jobs than providing loans to new entrepreneurs or tax credits to small business owners who hire veterans.  I don’t believe it’s more likely to spur economic growth than investments in clean energy technology and medical research, or in new roads and bridges and runways.  

I don’t believe that giving someone like Mr. Romney another huge tax cut is worth ending the guarantee of basic security we’ve always provided the elderly, and the sick, and those who are actively looking for work.  (Applause.) 

This sort of language isn't bad, but it feels more like something we'd see coming out of the mouth of John Kerry or Al Gore. It doesn't have any of the usual Obama flair. It goes through a laundry list of Democratic talking points without creating a unified moral appeal or emotional hook. The "bottom-up" economy language isn't good enough; it's a nice policy descriptor, but doesn't provide any sort of deeper moral resonance. 

He does come close to articulating a coherent vision in this excerpt:

So, no, I don’t believe the government is the answer to all our problems.  I don’t believe every regulation is smart, or that every tax dollar is spent wisely.  I don’t believe that we should be in the business of helping people who refuse to help themselves.  (Applause.)  But I do share the belief of our first Republican President, from my home state -- Abraham Lincoln -- that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves.  (Applause.)  

That’s how we built this country -- together.  We constructed railroads and highways, the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge.  We did those things together.  We sent my grandfather’s generation to college on the GI Bill -- together.  (Applause.)  We instituted a minimum wage and rules that protected people’s bank deposits -- together.  (Applause.)
Together, we touched the surface of the moon, unlocked the mystery of the atom, connected the world through our own science and imagination. 

We haven’t done these things as Democrats or Republicans.  We’ve done them as Americans.  (Applause.) 

As much as we might associate the GI Bill with Franklin Roosevelt, or Medicare with Lyndon Johnson, it was a Republican -- Lincoln -- who launched the Transcontinental Railroad, the National Academy of Sciences, land-grant colleges.  It was a Republican -- Eisenhower -- who launched the Interstate Highway System and a new era of scientific research.  It was Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency; Reagan who worked with Democrats to save Social Security, -- and who, by the way, raised taxes to help pay down an exploding deficit.  (Applause.)

If you want to really do something about it, if you really want to get the deficit under control without sacrificing all the investments that I’ve talked about, our tax code has to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a little bit more -- (applause) -- just like they did when Bill Clinton was President; just like they did when our economy created 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history, and a lot of millionaires to boot.   

I like this bit, but then again I'm a sucker for sweeping historical claims.  And note another Clinton reference.


Nevertheless, "togetherness" is too broad a moral hook. It's too vague and doesn't capture enough substance of the liberal vision. Nor does it appeal to a non-liberal mind, as "responsibility" might. 


Obama doesn't do the rhetorical heavy lifting necessary to make this idea more tangible. Once again, he only defines himself (A) as distinct from Romney and the GOP and (B) as the latest member in a long line of pragmatic, moderate Presidents. He doesn't use this historical narrative to make a specific case for the liberal agenda. He alludes to themes like "responsibility" and "togetherness" but doesn't connect these ideas to his own approach  (besides gesturing toward higher taxes on the rich). I left out a lot of talk about research and development, but, once again, this talk emerges as a sort of generic laundry list. 


In sum, Obama's framing of the election as a big choice looks excellent, as is his attempt to tie Romney to the Bush years. But he's got some work to do; his articulation of his own vision is generic (mediocre, if competent). I believe that Obama is one of the most skilled rhetoricians of our era, but the liberal vision itself has always eluded him.  I'm not looking for a sweeping statement of liberal political thought, only a succinct, attractive statement of Obama's liberal vision, a statement of what Obama stands before beside mere moderation. We see liberalism presented only as "togetherness," and that's the sort of presentation which can be easily pilloried by the right as weak-kneed lefty nonsense. He needs a stronger, more universally appealing way of articulating his alternative to the (successfully framed) Romney-Bush failure.


I understand that my concluding  critique sounds a bit vague. Tomorrow, I'll use Franklin Roosevelt's famous address to the Commonwealth Club to more specifically illustrate a better approach to speaking about the left's vision for America.