Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer's Democratic Response Didn't Make Emotional Contact Because Their Delivery Was Awful

Nancy Pelosi, official portrait

Last night, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer said words of caring, but they sounded like two people who cared about nothing. 

We public speaking teachers tell our students to speak with vocal variety and emphasis. Even at his worst, Donald Trump does just that. Last night's Democratic response by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer showed no vocal variety or emphasis. How dull is a Mr. Ed TV marathon? How dull is an Andy Warhol movie? Well Pelosi and Schumer were duller. They had lots of problems, but poor presentation was #1. If you speak poorly, your message gets lost.

Many of the response speeches over the years have been dull, insipid, and, well, bizarre. Marco Rubio pausing to grab a glass of water? Steve Beshear speaking to a restaurant full of stone-faced diner patrons? It’s been a long, sad story. Yes, Schumer got in a good zinger about Mexico not paying for the wall, but why were he and Pelosi so quiet? Why the monotone? Why didn't they make normal hand gestures like the ones that normal people make when they talk? Let's figure that out.

First, it is challenging to come alive when you are speaking to a camera in a studio. Skilled actors can reach across the ether, but politicians tend to draw energy from a live audience. They didn’t have a live audience last night. But they needed to interact with the unseen broadcast audience.

Chuck Schumer official portrait (via Wikimedia)

Second, even in a studio, a speaker needs to reach into the diaphragm muscle and project the voice. If you expect the microphone to pick up the volume, you'll get in trouble fast. A studio speaker needs to project the voice past the back of the room. Otherwise, the voice sounds weak and the speaker seems stilted, timid, or even apathetic. Like Pelosi and Schumer.

Third, maybe they needed less of a script. Radio announcers rarely speak from a script; they might glance at some notes, but they converse with the unseen audience. Pelosi and Schumer needed to make emotional contact. They didn't.

Content is good (although Pelosi and Schumer didn't have much of that, either) but good content can’t convince people who aren’t paying attention. Speakers need to sound as if they care. Trump was dull last night; Pelosi and Schumer were even duller.

Of course, it would have helped a lot if Pelosi and Schumer had presented some kind of alternate plan. We learned what they are against. They are against the wall. Well, fine; so am I. We never found out what they were for. Do they even know?