Over the course of my career, I have written many political speeches both for my own engagements and for politicians. As we identify what kind of speeches involve what kind of responses please know that for every response takes some level of research.
There are different kinds of political communications:
1. Stump Speeches
2. Media Responses
3. Rally Engagement
4. Crisis Management
5. Personal stories
Let us dig into each of these a little bit so you fully understand how to get to the gut of your messaging.
1. Stump Speeches.
This takes a great deal of data in order to get a correct stump speech. To start off let us talk about the DON'T's.
+Do not use I more than once
+Do not write about what you care about
+Do not go in blind
+Do Not Beg
+Do Not Whine
+Do not make this speech longer than 20 minutes
Your audience will take away only 1 maybe 2 quotes from your speech. So longer is not better, you need every line to be quality, not quantity.
Start with a Thank You. People have taken the time to come out in the cold or the hot to hear you make promises you may or may not be able to keep so be grateful and humble.
Next, you should have had a team of people making calls or knocking on doors with a list of 4-5 top priorities. The voter should respond to what is most important to you. This tells us what we need to address. You never walk into a meeting or a town blind. In order words having no idea what THEY care about. Take the information and DO NOT COMPLAIN! Talk about solutions. They already know what they are frustrated about they want to know that you will create a solution not that you also are annoyed.
Next, create your call to action. You should have intrigued them with the fact that you are talking about things that are priorities to them so now we need them to engage. each demographic will call for different kinds of calls to action. In other words, do not ask a group of 70-year-old women to block walk.
Finally, use you one and only "I" statement.
Example:
First, I would like to say Thank You for coming out this evening. Surely there was a better-looking man whose eyes you could be looking into tonight but you chose to be here. I do not take that lightly I am honored and grateful. Each of you has had to process a lot of changes in your small town. You have seen growth and excitement. The young are planting roots here and that brings hope for your beautiful future as a community. However, you have had to burden through accepting that with change also meant increasing property taxes. That is not something you signed up for. Never have you been so tormented by the excitement of seeing your grandchildren grow and also the fear of what you will leave them behind. The house has a bill to propose a solution to your burdened hearts. Each of you will have to take a friend to the polls on November 5th to assure you get the right person to the House to make that bill a reality. I am the candidate who withholds the values of who we are as a community and will see that the fruit of our labor is not taken advantage of.
Copywritten: Izzy Gentry
2. Media Responses.
Ther are two kinds of media responses.
A-Positive
B-Negative
During a type-A response, it is mostly questions and answers.
Example:
How well are people responding to your convention?
"Engagement is up by 40 percent. Enthusiasm is through the roof. I can say we have more volunteers than we have ever had before."
During a type-B response, you are typically responding to a negative story or allegation.
Here is the gut.
GET OFF DEFENSE!
The minute you respond by defending yourself you are immediately handing them the ball and allowing them a free 20 yard gain.
Acknowledge and move forward.
Once you have acknowledged, respond to further requests with "I have already acknowledged this question, if you have further questions on other issues I would be happy to take the interview."
The media team's whole goal is to get you to repeat a narrative and have you mess up a detail. The gain would be to run a follow-up story about how your story doesn't add up and they get you to respond to that which feeds more stories and so on and so forth. Keep the ball in your court and stay on the path moving forward not backward.
Example:
During your early years, you were quoted saying you were for the legalization of marijuana now you say you are against it. What do you say to your voters who question how you will vote on this if it comes to a bill?
"Great question Martha, as you know it's scriptural that when I was a youth I spoke as a youth. As a father and a husband, my whole motive in life is to gain knowledge and wisdom that protects their future. We are dedicated to research and as that develops we will know how to move forward in the future. As of now, there is not enough data to prove to me the safety or long-term effects won't damage the culture in which we are raising precious families in."
3. Rally Engagement.
You will use the same formula as a stump speech however you need to add after the THANK YOU's a section on your local team. If you are running for Senator, you will make sure you uplift your State Reps, Mayors, Local Law Enforcement, etc. NEVER use I in this section. Talk a little about how well of a team player everyone is and allow them to speak on your behalf as to the benefits of a working relationship with you. Remind them not to mention your opponent. They are not there to sell messaging only partnership. Show unity and showcase your leadership skills.
4. Crisis Management.
Here there are two kinds of crises. Inner party attacks and outside party attacks.
1. How to handle quarrels inside your party. KNOW THE RULES BETTER THAN THEM. Your bible is and will always be the constitution, SREC rules, Bylaws per county, Bylaws per organization, amendments, and Secretary Of State Laws. I know it is a lot of information that is why you have a communications expert. When the chairman has questions they lean to you to say what do the rules say. It is our job to keep all communications very close to the rules without directly reciting them and also not deviating from them. It is a dance. You make plenty of enemies when you live by the rules. There is no compromise. The people vote these rules in for a reason it is our job to stay within the parameters.
When you start to respond always start off in unity. Even though you may hate the people you are responding to or even know they are wrong and you are right still stay united. Many times I have had to craft responses that have been to save face for our party more than to defend my client. This shows integrity. There are those who point fingers and scream blames. They are also jokes and the butt of the jokes behind closed doors.
Stay within the rules and your only defense will have to be "can you tell me where we are breaking the rules?" Rarely is there ever a valid non emotionally driven accusation that can't be handled with a simple rules check. Most inner-party conflict is emotionally driven by people with hurt feelings.
2. Outside Party Attacks. These will be the attacks of morality versus morality. My moral compass says yours is off. These are emotional battles. These are NEVER going to be won. So don't try. Your job in any and all cases is to be the calmest one in the argument. Make the other look hysterical and dramatic. This should escalate the opponent and actually cause them to increase their antics due to a lack of response. Be even less engaged. Never Ignore the opponent just talk in a way that displays self-control and composure. This will show voters who is a leader and who is an emotional wreck.
5. Personal Stories.
This is the hardest topic for me because I am not an emotional person. I do well under pressure and have always thrived off chaos. Over the last decade of my life, I have spent a great deal of time maneuvering off the defense and into an offensive lifestyle. No one ever told me my personal experiences would position me to help others in their most critical and life-changing moments in life. You get to see people at their most vulnerable and experience how others manage their stress and fears. Taking all that I have learned, I am now grateful for the challenges I have had and will never take for granted what life brings you to. Everyone has a story. Some have huge twists and turns, others have had more internal battles than external. All are worthy of being heard. Just because maybe you have never seen rock bottom in a jail cell doesn't mean your story is boring. Others have picked themself back up after depression or have gone on a self-discovering journey. Who you are is not who you will be in 5 years and thank God for that because growth is beautiful. Look at how a sunflower goes from seed to stock and nurtures all that grows alongside it. Are you the tomato who needs nurturing or are you the sunflower who nurtures others? Figure that out and that's your personal story.
As you can see my answer was my personal story. This is helpful both in a speech or a response. Start with vulnerability, relate to others, last create a call to action.
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