Artie Gross: Home
Speaking Without A Teleprompter-April 20, 2009
Is it possible for a politician to speak to a crowd without the benefit of having every word they say scrolled on a teleprompter at the back of the room? Can someone really have a heartfelt message about which they are passionate? Can that message be relayed to an audience in a manner that keeps their interest and shows them the true speaking ability of someone that doesn’t have so much as an index card with notes? Has President Obama changed the definition of a talented speaker to include someone with the ability to look over a crowd and see what the machine would have him say?
Fortunately, there are still people involved in the political process that have deep convictions which guide their lives. Representative Pete Hoekstra(R-MI) is one of those people. To see someone that knows what principles drive their decision making process have the ability to relate those principles to a crowd by speaking to them simply as people is very refreshing.
I recently had the privilege to attend the Lenawee County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner in Adrian, Michigan where Rep. Hoekstra was the featured speaker. I knew that when it came to ideas, he was definitely the opposite of President Obama. The encouraging part is that his presentation style was also a true contrast to that of the president. For the past couple of years we have been told that President Obama is the greatest speaker to ever step to the podium. It is said that no person has ever had the ability to capture the undivided attention of a crowd the way that he does. These statements may be true if we were in fact attributing them to the president’s teleprompter instead of to him personally. Rep. Hoekstra is the anti-teleprompter. He took the microphone in hand, and without the use of any notes, kept the crowd’s attention as he spoke directly to them.
The clearest difference between Rep. Hoekstra and President Obama, however, was not their presentation styles. Whereas the president speaks in elegant phrases intended to disguise his true intentions, Rep. Hoekstra spoke with substance. He presented ideas that made sense. Having served on the committee that oversees our intelligence agencies since 2001, Rep. Hoekstra spoke very intelligently about the threats that our country still faces, despite the Obama administration replacing the term terrorism with the phrase “man-caused disaster.” Rep. Hoekstra summed it up best when he stated, “AIG is a man-caused disaster. Terrorism is terrorism.”
Rep. Hoekstra also addressed an issue that many people are most likely not even aware exists. The Obama administration would like to see the Senate ratify a United Nations treaty that would give government the ability to interfere with a parent’s right to raise their child in the way that they consider best. The treaty would give the government the right to interfere with families for the “best interest of the child.” The government will be the one that gets to determine what the best interest of the child is. Now that is a scary thought. Rep. Hoekstra has introduced a constitutional amendment that would clearly state the government can only intervene in a family when instances of abuse or neglect are present. It would also clearly state that the Constitution overrides any treaty that may be ratified. It is truly a shame that we have reached a point in our country where we have to incorporate language into the Constitution that states the Constitution is the final authority in the United States of America. For over two hundred years, this simple fact has been understood, but due to the rise of extreme liberalism, we must now clearly spell out things that have been known to common sense people from the founding of our country.
Rep. Hoekstra has announced that he will be running for governor of Michigan in 2010. Many speeches will be given over the course of the next year and a half, and all of the candidates will have an opportunity to educate voters on their views. What was obvious in Adrian the other night is that Rep. Pete Hoekstra is setting a bar that all of the other candidates will be challenged to meet, but I hope they will all be able to rise to his challenge. Michigan led the country in the economic decline. Next year’s gubernatorial race will be a chance to lead the country in the political resurgence of honest conservatism that is so desperately needed at this point in our history.