CNN's Tom Foreman examines how presidential candidates borrow rhetoric from past leaders. Obama echoes MLK with 'Yes, we can,' McCain channels Reagan's 'my friends,' and Clinton lifts phrases from earlier campaigns. The report shows how candidates strategically adopt proven inspirational language.
Chapters
Well, it feels like you've heard this presidential stump speeches before from other candidates and other campaigns. You may well have, but you may be remembering the style more than the substance. CNN's Tom Foreman reports.
There is something happening in America. What is happening is an explosion of inspirational words that some pundits say rival the best stump speeches ever. And the senator who sounds like a preacher is leading the revival. Yes, we. It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land. Yes, we can. To justice and equality. All this superlative speech making is no accident. And I've seen the promised land. Obama is channeling Martin Luther King Jr. And John Kennedy. This is the beginning of a great new day. And other candidates are drawing on the past, too, specifically through their choice of words. My friends, I didn't go to Washington to go along to get along or to play it safe to serve my own interests. I went there to serve my country. John McCain is clearly making a link to President Ronald Reagan who said, my friends, all the time. My friends, my friend. But I promise you, my friends, my friends, the wall is crumbling. Thank you, my friends, the amount of money that Bill Clinton took the White House from the first President Bush, talking about health care, oil profits, the cost of education, the collapsing middle class. And Hillary Clinton's campaign echoes many of his issues and words.
I want to rebuild a strong and prosperous middle class. And to me, that is the most important job the next president will have here at home. Because if we don't begin to pay attention to the people who do the work and raise the families and make this country great, we will not recognize America in a few years.
Presidential candidate John Edwards was saying much the same thing a full four years ago. But as many political observers have noticed, at some point, almost every candidate borrows ideas or words and even their speaking style from someone else. I think you have to have somebody from outside Washington who has proven that he can get the job done. In some ways, it's unavoidable. If your background is in business, like Mitt Romney, of course, you sound like past campaigners who talked about a businesslike approach to government. Days we've seen you are a former minister like Mike Huckabee. Well, praise the Lord and pass the familiar folksiness. We just sense that we were going to do better than a lot of people thought that this old, unknown Southern boy could possibly do up here in New England. So is all of this adding up to the best season of political speeches in decades? Maybe. But then we've heard that before, too. Tom Foreman, cnn, America, Washington.
