Obama: “A More Perfect Union”
When Barack Obama approached the podium at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008, his mission was to beat back one of the most daunting setbacks of his presidential campaigns. The man who sought to unite America was facing questions about his relationship with Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., the pastor at Obama’s church. Snippets from some of Wright’s sermons were circulating online and on the news, and critics charged they were unpatriotic and inflammatory. Obama’s poll numbers were dropping as questions mounted and his image suffered. Which is why it was so surprising, courageous, and refreshing to hear Obama spend his 37 minute speech, “A More Perfect Union,” candidly discussing his relationship with Reverend Wright and the state of race relations in America instead of throwing his friend under the bus.

Obama was eloquent but also fearless, giving context and nuance in his examination of racial resentment, and even referencing the unconscious prejudices of his white grandmother. Accolades soon poured forth. “I don't recall another speech about race with as little pandering or posturing or shying from awkward points, and as much honest attempt to explain and connect, as this one,” wrote James Fallows on his blog for The Atlantic. In the New York Times Nicholas D. Kristof called the speech “not a sound bite, but a symphony.” “No other presidential candidate in the last forty years has managed to speak so much truth so eloquently at such a crucial juncture in his campaign as Barack Obama did today,” wrote Charles Kaiser in Radar. And it wasn’t just the pundits who appreciated the address. Poll numbers showed a majority of those who’d heard or read about it approved, and Obama’s national poll numbers rebounded soon after.

Hillary Rodham as a Wellesley undergraduate.   (Photo: Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Clinton: 1969 Wellesley Commencement Speech
In The Extreme Makeover of Hillary (Rodham) Clinton, Bay Buchanan neatly sums up the conventional wisdom on Clinton as an orator: “She impresses her audiences with her celebrity and her knowledge, but she doesn’t connect with them.” Larry Sabato, election predictor and political analyst, more cleverly describes her speaking style as “an amalgam of wood and plastic.” Her grateful and enthusiastic 2000 New York Senate acceptance speech, wherein she clearly connected with the exuberant, pro-Clinton audience, is a recent exception. But it was at the 1969 graduation ceremonies at Wellesley that Hillary delivered the most heartfelt speech of her life— and stuck it to the man in full sixties-generation mode.

The first speaker at the Wellesley commencement was Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, a Republican, and the only black United States senator at that time. He delivered a mundane, fatherly address (“There is a narrow but distinct line between productive dissent and counter-productive disruption”). Senior class president Hillary Rodham then took to the podium as the first student to speak at commencement in Wellesley’s history … and tore him a new one. She strayed from her prepared remarks (no doubt containing some kind of road or highway metaphor) to rebuke the school’s invited guest for his conservative philosophy. It wasn’t always eloquent, but it was honest and soul-searching, and the kids loved it. (The administration did not: In her autobiography, Clinton writes that the school’s president had her clothes taken away as she took a dip in a lake later that day.) The media also took notice: Life magazine famously wrote up the speech, publishing Hillary’s photo.

McCain: 1996 Republican National Convention
McCain’s nomination speech in San Diego made a strong impression on many viewers, including the presidential nominee: Tears rolled down Bob Dole’s cheeks as McCain spoke. Noting their shared military record, McCain spoke of the “virtues of the quiet hero” who “answers without reservation, not for fame or reward, but for love.” David S.Broder wrote in the Washington Post that the speech was “full of simple words, perfectly chosen and with not a syllable to spare, [making] a far better case for electing Bob Dole than the prolix and awkward speech he delivered himself.” After the convention, Newsday noted the “strong, soothing voice of the retired four-star general” and suggested he would make a good alternative to Pat Buchanan. In the New York Times, Frank Rich said that the Arizona senator was the exception at a convention where “nearly every event and personality was pseudo.” McCain didn’t win the nomination for vice-president in 1998. But considering how Dole did in the general election, it was probably for the best.

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