News Analysis Sen Cory Booker Addresses Democratic Convention

Senator Cory Booker addressed the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia this evening. How did he do? Bit of a mixed bag here. On the one hand, Cory Booker is a great public speaker. Even his political enemies would concede to that. He's someone who loves the spotlight, loves to speak, has a long track record as a public person speaking, even though he hasn't been a senator that long. He clearly relished the moment, was enjoying himself. He had at the beginning, certain rhetorical flourishes evoking Lincoln at Gettysburg. He put in some historical sweep, some grand philosophical underpinnings to his speech, made the case forcefully for Hillary Clinton, talked about his own ideals for the country, had so much passion, excitement, great range of voice, forceful, good hand gestures. Many observers, I'm certainly not the only one, thought that this was reminiscent of a young Barack OBAMA at the 2004 Democratic convention, the very speech that put Obama on the national spotlight. So many, many good things that Cory Booker has to be happy about with his speech. However, life is unfair. And unfortunately, this is one of these moments. It was warm in the convention hall. It's warm in Philadelphia. It's warm in New York where I am. It's been in the 90s all week. And Cory Booker was sweating profusely in the convention hall. And I counted not one, not two, not three, but four times when he had to take, I guess it was handkerchief and wipe his brow, wipe the sweat off his forehead. And something similar to this happened to Senator Marco Rubio a few years ago, and he was giving a response to the State of the Union address and quickly had a dry mouth and grabbed a bottle of water and drank it in front of. That became the most memorable moment. It took a couple of years for him to live that down. I don't know if this is going to be quite as scarring a moment for Senator Booker, but I would certainly anticipate perhaps Saturday Night Live sketches where an actor portraying him is sweating so profusely that gigantic sponges have to come out. He is one of those politicians that if anyone can laugh it off and bounce back, he can, because he does have so much energy. And he's always. He's on Twitter, he's on Facebook, Instagram. He is a social media and public speaking dynamo. Unfortunately, that was the one incident tomorrow. Couple of tips. If you're worried about being hot, what I would recommend, and this is a little different from normal protocol for public speaking, typically I would say don't drink water with ice, but if you're worried about overheating, then drink water with ice and have an assistant take out a glass of ice water and put it on there. It would have been much less noticeable if he finished a paragraph, got some applause, stepped back for a second, calmly, slowly took a sip of water, put it back down, rather than having to wipe his brow and pat off his head with tissue. So you have to think about all of these issues. The other thing is more powder makeup. If you think you're going to be sweating, it's not going to make you cooler, but it's going to make the sweat less obvious. So whether you're doing your own makeup or you have convention staff applying makeup, tell them to go heavy on the powder. Beyond that, make sure that you, you know, you're speaking in the summertime, make sure you have a summer suit. Now, he did not have a vest on, so that's good. And he certainly didn't have much of an option in that situation. You have to wear a suit and tie if you're a U.S. senator, if you're a man. But make sure you're dressed as coolly as possible and don't wear things that heavier fabrics than usual or a vest or anything like that. That's all you can do. Otherwise, if something like this does happen and people start laughing at you and making fun of it, take a page from Bill Clinton, get back out there the next day, laugh at yourself, let comedians laugh at you, and start speaking more and more and more over time. People will forget.