Politics of New York (state)

Transcription

This is the University of Rochester I think the ability to communicate cannot be overstated. Let's look at the state of New York for example Mario Cuomo was elected 3 times and became a national democratic figure, not simply because of his philosophy, which was moderate to liberal But above all of his appreciation of the English language He understood, as his close friend, incidentally and ironically Richard Nixon did They became close friends in the last 10 years of Nixon's life How, as Cuomo once said, "You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose." Nixon had said virtually the same thing, and that is "Politics is poetry, not prose." and certainly Cuomo's ability to use the English language, most notably his 1984 Speech to the Democratic National Convention when he talked about, a tale of two Americas. I think, not simply elected him in 1982 but really did allow him to then become an important democratic totem. By contrast, look at other candidates and other govenors and senators in recent New York history. Al D'Amato, for example, the antithesis of Cuomo. He was called "Senator Pothole", and how apt that was given that he spent so much of his career in the sewer. He found it very difficult to communicate. George Pataki could have used a course in public speaking at a very early age. And you look at other Republicans, Rick Lazio, who is certainly I think rhetorically challenged. This campaign is interesting because Carl Paladino is a sledgehammer. I mean, some candidates are rapiers, and some are stilettos, he is a sledgehammer. Andrew Cuomo, Mario Cuomo's son, it seems to me is less of the poet than the sledgehammer as well. So I think we're going to have that kind of campaign. But I think in the end what happens and what counts is not that you adopt a certain type of public speaking, but that you excel at the route you choose. If you look at polling data today, 4 out of 5 Americans, 80% call themselves the middle class. The trick is, how to reach that 80% with rhetoric that applies to them. Bill Clinton used to talk about, "I feel your pain" and was very empathetic even when his policies necessarily weren't. So I think the great battle in America, in the next 5-10 years politically, at least, is not so much between conservative and liberal, and God knows Republican and Democrat, but rather between the middle class and the elites. We have a terrible, terrible chasm. An enormous estrangement growing daily, growing exponentially, between that 4 and 5 Americans, the decent quiet majority, the silent majority if you would and the elites in Washington and also New York who really do look down upon the middle class. Who think of themselves as better, when in fact in so many ways they are inferior to the middle class. The party, the candidate, the campaign which knows how to speak to the middle class, whether it be a place for religion in public life, or the work ethic, or American exceptionalism, or how America becomes more diverse it is more essential than ever that we remember what unites us, not simply divides us. So that we don't have a suicide mission of one group here, and another group there. We're called the United States of America and it seems to me that a candidate or a president who understands what united means, and has the rhetoric to appeal to that and affirm it, That is the person who is going to help himself, and his party as well. This is the University of Rochester