How Do You Give A Great Acceptance Speech?
“Acceptance speeches didn’t used to be at all autobiographical,” says former Clinton speechwriter David Kusnet. “Roosevelt didn’t talk about recovering from polio. John F. Kennedy didn’t talk about PT-109 or being Catholic or being the grandson of Irish immigrants. Eisenhower didn’t talk about WWII. The first candidate to be autobiographical in a convention speech was Richard Nixon. And after Nixon, every candidate from an unprivileged background talked about how he came up from poverty, and every candidate from a privileged background went searching for something in his background that would humanize him.” This quote from a story called Speech Therapy from The New York Metro Magazine highlights the challenges facing the rich and powerful, everyone from movie stars to Presidents, in giving an acceptance speech. The quote Kusnet was refering to was the one Richard Nixon gave at the 1968 Republican convention. “I see another child tonight. He hears the train go by at night and he dreams
