You listen to enough announcement speeches, and you begin to get a sense of what’s garnering praise in the focus groups, and what isn’t. Here’s what I figure the ideal speech would sound like:
“Energy independence by [future date year]: I will figure out how later, but I think it will involve windmills. Perhaps tilting at them.”
“I will denounce the administration for being way too optimistic in its planning about Iraq, and offer my own plan for withdrawal, which requires LSD to achieve the wild-eyed optimism necessary to believe it will work without ending in an even bloodier mess.”
(You know, something like, “The great drawback of my own position is that it requires the United States to stand back as genocide takes place.” Kudos for honesty, but that little drawback ought to amount to more than a footnote in the arguments of the withdraw-now crowd.)
“Health care is a right, not a privilege, and thus, I am willing to throw out the entire concept of fee-for-service and compensation for health care workers out the window, and force doctors into treating patients for rates that I as Supreme Leader of America will deem fair.”
“I support our troops. I think their mission is wrong, doomed, illegal, and I will instinctively believe every tale of their misdeeds on al-Jazeera, but other than that, I support the troops.”
“As President, I will give you free stuff, and make sure somebody else pays for it.”