Monday, October 18, 2010

Bill White: A Candidate for Any Audience

I had the opportunity, yesterday, to see Bill White deliver his “stump speech” in two cities and in front of two very different audiences. I was amazed at the versatility of Mayor White.

I was amazed at his adaptability.

A “stump speech,” by definition is one where you speak the same lines in one city after another, in front of one audience after another. It’s kind of like delivering the same lesson to six different classes all day.

Kind of.

As an educator, I am aware that my teaching style, and what I say, varies throughout the day. And how I make my delivery very much depends on how my classes respond.

The content is the same, but the delivery is different.

Bill White, Democratic candidate for Governor of Texas, does that, too.

Witness his two speeches that I witnessed yesterday. The first speech was delivered in Fort Bend County in the hot sun outdoors in front of a middle class audience about 200 in number. It was an ethnically diverse middle class audience.

The other, delivered 2 hours later in Galveston, indoors in a cool hotel ballroom before about 800 Democrats, again a diverse middle class audience, carried a similar message, but you could see how the Galveston audience provided a different, shall we say, chemistry.

Bill White would make a fairly decent teacher, but more to the point, he will make an excellent Governor of Texas.

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