He cited “the greatest lesson Mom ever taught me,” namely, that “there would be times in your life when you have to choose between being loved and being respected…. He declared that the country has fallen into trouble because the American people lack backbone. The “we” he used, as an African-American leader who came of age after the civil-rights movement, was radically inclusive.Ĭhristie did not offer hope he scolded. He presented himself as a symbol of other Americans’ hopes and ideals. Obama did so memorably because he incanted aspirations larger than his own. In Christie’s speech of about twenty-six hundred words, he did so fifty-one times.Īt the end of Christie’s autobiographical section, however, it became clear, as he turned toward subjects other than himself, that the Governor and his speechwriters had misapprehended why the Obama speech they had copied had been so successful.Ī lot of politicians tell stories about their families, from which they draw lessons for America. In Obama’s speech of about twenty-three hundred words, he used a version of the personal pronoun fifty-nine times. There was something self-regarding about both of these keynote constructions. Obama finished this section of his speech stirringly: “I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.”Ĭhristie tried to follow Obama’s script after his opening line, he described his up-by-the-bootstraps parents, who “came from nothing.” He focussed in particular on his mother, who was “tough as nails and didn’t suffer fools at all.” It was an effective performance, delivered in simple sentences, and Christie came to a strong punch line: “I am her son.” He spoke of his father’s poverty in Kenya, his parents’ interracial marriage, and their ambition for their son. In Boston, Obama pivoted from his rhetorical opening to a narrative of his family. His first sentence was: “This stage and this moment are very improbable for me.” On Tuesday night, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who is often mentioned as a Republican contender for the Presidency in 2016, delivered a keynote address to the Republican National Convention in Tampa.
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