> in fact, there was little that could be construed as "communication"
> in the speeches of reagan (if we assume that communication involves
> some linguistic or other transmittal of knowledge or feeling). what
> reagan did succeed at was, in a bumbling sort of way, telling people
> that it was all right to believe in what ever they already believed in
> - without actually telling them substantively what it is they or he
> believed. in this regard, the comparisons to reagan's political heir
> (bush jr.) are a bit beside the point. reagan - as the great
> communicator - found his rightful heir in clinton. after all clinton
> perfected the "communication by poll results" method that was nascent
> under reagan. in essence, clinton converted the reagan legacy into an
> exact science in which he basically told people what they wanted to
> hear based on surveys - then still did whatever he wanted.
That's exactly what made RR what people called the "Great Communicator." He communicated with his followers at a gut level, where information and intelligence are irrelevant. So did Clinton -- and FDR, for that matter.
By contrast, I caught a bit of a tape of Carter's notorious speech from the Oval Office on C-SPAN late last night -- the speech in which he told everybody to turn down their thermostats. He had a lot of sensible things to say about the importance of conserving energy, but watching the tape reminded me why so many people came to hate him. The way he delivered it nearly turned *my* stomach, and I agreed with a lot of the points he was making on an intellectual level.
If the Left today had a few people who could communicate as well as RR it would be sitting pretty (defining "Left" for purposes of this discussion very broadly, as everyone from the DP on over). Look how many votes Kerry seems set to get, even though he communicates about as well as though he were already on Mt. Rushmore.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe. -- Attr. to Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile