Nick Roman
January 20, 2009
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Cal State Long Beach professor and former White House speech writer Craig Smith will do what many Americans plan to do when President Barack Obama delivers his inaugural address. Smith will watch the speech from Rome, where he'll host a lecture on presidential inaugurals just before the speech. Smith spoke with KPCC's Nick Roman.
Nick Roman: Speechwriters give a busy president the appropriate words for each occasion. Craig Smith did that for President Gerald Ford 30 years ago. Now he's a professor of communications at Cal State Long Beach.
Like all Americans, Dr. Smith is eager to hear which words Barack Obama chooses for his inaugural. Even the new president's daughter is telling him that the speech "better be good." Smith expects it will.
Craig Smith: The nice thing about an inaugural is you have a lot of time to plan it, and so it can go through a lot of drafts. Franklin Roosevelt's inaugurals went through 10 to 12 drafts before they got it just the way they wanted it.
Roman: Roosevelt's writers knew Roosevelt. Smith says Ronald Reagan's speechwriters knew their man – and when he worked at the White House, he made sure he knew how President Ford thought and spoke.
Smith: One of the things we're trained to do is to learn that voice. When I went to work for Gerald Ford, I had to read many, many of his speeches. I had to look at his congressional testimony. I watched all of his press conferences.
So I began to get a feeling that he spoke the language of the common man. He didn't like big words. He was very pragmatic. Then you try to match your rhetoric to that persona.
Roman: When it works, the results can make history. Smith was one of several writers who crafted President Ford's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in 1976. Dogged by the Nixon pardon and by Reagan's fierce primary challenge – with Democrat Jimmy Carter well ahead in the polls – President Ford needed to deliver a great speech. He did.
Smith: One of the keys to the success of that speech – because it put us back in the race for president – was that the president rehearsed it five times in front of live cameras. So his delivery was smoother than usual.
And that's a really important thing for people to remember. You can write the best speech in the world, but if the client doesn't rehearse or stumbles through it, mispronounces words, you're dead.
Roman: Craig Smith says there's no doubt that Barack Obama will rehearse his inaugural address plenty of times. He says there's also no doubt that the world will be listening closely. That was clear when Smith and his students in Italy went to church on Sunday.
Smith: And just when the mass started, the priest, the Italian priest, looked at the back of the church and saw us sitting back there. Somehow, he said, "Are you American? Are you American?" And he said, "Come to the front! Come to the front!"
And he made us sit in the front, and he celebrated in his sermon what America does to lead the world, and particularly the business about the election of Barack Obama. So it's a wonderful feeling being here and having these people appreciate our democracy and celebrating it. I mean, there are gonna be big screens all through Rome, and people are gonna gather and watch – and it's just gonna be terrific.
Roman: Cal State Long Beach professor Craig Smith, the former White House speechwriter, is at John Cabot University in Rome to deliver a lecture on the history of presidential inaugurations.
