Women Win at Dem Convention

Two big women winners at the Democratic Convention last night.

Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina (huh?)

By any standards, Clinton’s speech was a huge success. There are motivational and inspirational and humorous keynote speakers out there who would die to be able to generate the level of enthusiasm and reaction which the former first lady generated.

From a communications and keynote speaker point of view, she got almost everything right. Admittedly, she did have a very receptive audience but her speech was an excellently crafted piece of oratory. I have not been able to determine who the primary speech-writer was but she or he earned their corn last night.

Words though do not make a great speech. If they did, Richard Nixon would be lauded as a great speaker as some of the material he received from William Safire, Pat Buchanan, David Gergen and others represented great wordsmithing. What makes a great speech is the occasion - which Clinton had, the delivery of a speech which for Clinton was nothing short of brilliant with wonderful pacing and voice pitch. And of course she had some excellent sound-bites especially “No way, No how, No McCain.”

I have always thought of Hillary Clinton as a very competent speaker. Last night, she leaped into the pantheon of world class orators. The lady done good!

And now for the other winner last night – Carly Fiorina.

This former Chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard has (like Hillary) suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in a generally successful career.

Now an economic consultant to John McCain, this lady was interviewed by Greta Van Susteren on Fox last night. Acknowledged as an excellent communicator and speech-maker, she gave Hillary Clinton credit for a “wonderful speech,” and then went on to provide a bravura performance as to why John McCain is the right man for the White House. Her presentation style was similar to Clintons – crisp, clear, passionate and extremely professional.

As I watched it, I thought McCain could do a lot worse than pick this lady for VP candidate. There is a percentage of the Hillary vote up for grabs, despite her endorsement of Barack Obama. The political strategists know that they are playing for only 5-8% of the national vote – the undecided voter. Fiorina would give the GOP a real chance to switch some of those disaffected Hillary people over.

Whatever happens, kudos to Hillary and Carly, two great communicators

Posted by Chicago based Irish keynote speaker and business humorist Conor Cunneen