Kristin Urquiza's Speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention: Short and She Told a Story

Kristin Urquiza gave a brief (about a minute, I think) but powerful speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention. She told the story of her father, Mark Anthony Urquiza, who died of the coronavirus in Arizona.

She explained that her father had trusted Donald Trump and voted for him. When Trump said that it was safe to end quarantine and go out, her father believed the President. Her father went to a karaoke bar with his friends in May as soon as the state's lockdown order ended. He got sick and a few weeks later was in the ICU breathing on a ventilator. He died in the hospital alone, “with a nurse holding his hand.”

“My dad,” she explained,  “was a healthy 65-year old. His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that, he paid with his life.” The speaker’s point was not that Trump caused the coronavirus, but that he failed to deal with it responsibly and thus made the pandemic worse than it needed to be.

I’ll pass over the political side for the moment. Let’s talk about the public speaking techniques that gave this speech its power.

First, the speaker told a story. When we read about the coronavirus, we mostly run into statistics: the percentage of people who contracted, the percentage of positive versus negative coronavirus tests, the percentage of people who die after a positive test, the number of people who died yesterday, the relative dangers of different age groups, and so forth. Numbers are great. When people see numbers, they can calculate how bad something is and make decisions about it.

Numbers, however, don't hit people where it counts. We don’t really care about numbers. It is often said that people cannot visualize numbers higher than three, and that higher numbers are just abstractions to us. I don’t know whether that’s true or not. I do know, however, that stories give a message power, while numbers usually do not. 

Coronavirus, CDC

So, was Mark Anthony Urquiza a typical coronavirus patient? I don’t have enough information to know. What I do know is that I cared about his daughter’s story. Her calm but passionate delivery gave her story emotional impact. The entire convention is on line, but Kristen Urquiza adapted well to the remote format. 

Good public speakers tell stories. People care about stories. When a speaker’s abstract, scientific data doesn’t seem real, when clever speakers learn how to twist statistics to mean something other than what they really mean, the numbers just get bandied around and people don’t really care about them.

By the end of her story, however, we cared about Kristin Urquiza’s father: a loyal Trump supporter who trusted the president, as so many people do, only to discover too late that he was in trouble. I always told my students to tell stories in their speeches. Stories work. Good speakers use them.

Earlier Post: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' First Speech Told a Story

Second, Kristin Urquiza’s speech was short. If you took a coffee break, you would have missed it. Speakers often like to have a lot of time in front of an audience so they can hear themselves talk. But why? Short speeches sometimes have the most impact. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was only about five minutes, and yet it is the only speech from the long day’s events that anyone remembers. Booker T. Washington’s “Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are” was short but, again, it is the only speech from a long program that anyone remembers. If you want a long speech to be good, it’d better be really, really good. Sometimes a short speech with a simple point is the best. 

Rhetorical lesson learned? Tell a story, make your point, and sit down. 

Earlier Post: William Jennings Bryan's Famous 1896 Democratic Convention Speech