Tonight I am going to launch what we hope will be a series to help us do better political work than we perhaps think we are currently capable of doing, by learning how to talk to other people. I have no corner on that and there are lots and lots of different ways of talking to people.

I am not going to cover all of those ways or even many of those ways. One thing that I am able to do and have done for a long time is to make arguments to groups.

What I am going to do tonight is start with the premise that what we want to learn how to do is: to be able to construct a five to ten-minute statement to a group in a situation where you are advocating a position or attacking another position. And this is something I have done a lot of and while I have not codified it or even thought much about the process, I did spend a few hours this afternoon to try to figure out what the hell I was going to say, so it won’t be totally off the wall – just about half!

First, I think it is important that everybody understand that these are learnable skills. People are trained to do this and learn how to do it. I learned how to do it as a youngster because I was involved in oratory programs. I started out in competitive speech-giving as a junior high school student and competed throughout my high school years as a debater and orator and made it to the California State finals of the junior high school at one point. My point here being simply that these are things you can learn how to do. Just as you train yourself for athletics, you can train yourself for speaking. What I have to offer tonight are just a few hints about how to approach that process.

I basically have a couple things to offer and then we could begin talking back and forth about this and can amplify on it until we run out of time at 8:30.

First, I have a list of some basic points about how to approach this challenge and how to approach making arguments as well as some rules that are worth following and yield results. Then, second, I am going to give you just a brief outline of how to make such a presentation. (Obviously, there are plenty of ways to do that, but this may serve at least as a working sample.)

So let me start with my list:

1. Anticipate your opponent.

When you go out to make an argument, even if no counter argument has yet been formally made to you, you are addressing a counter argument. So before you go into this kind of situation, part of the preparation is to learn what the people you’re trying to refute are saying to back their position. This is why we read the Blog. This is why we read the newspapers in the morning. This is why you watch George Bush on television, if you can stomach it, or at least read the summary the next day, because you want to know how these people are going to try to back their positions. As you elucidate your own position, you want to address that stuff without having to directly say that you are addressing it. When you make your argument against the war, you want to make your argument against their arguments, but in a way that does not single these out as their arguments, but takes them in passing.

Know who your opposition is and do your homework before you start shooting your mouth off. Theoretically, you should never be in a position where somebody comes up with an argument against what you are saying that you have not already anticipated. And if you anticipate it, then you should address it in your opening remarks, so you cut the ground out from under them. Then they are in no position to respond back to you (except to attack something that you have already done). So, that is Rule One.

The second rule is:
2. Don’t assume anybody knows anything.

We are so used to talking to like-minded people that conclusions people have long ago reached get built into the woodwork and you forget that not everybody has reached these conclusions. So as you go out to make a logic that people can subscribe to, you want to start with the basics. Do not jump ahead. Do not assume that people know what you are talking about. Do not think you can simply shorthand something, unless it is an audience that you know you can shorthand it. In most cases, it is a far safer bet to play the simpleton and start from A and work to Z. Do not try and skip stuff. Do not assume that anybody out there agrees with you, so that you do not have to explain it.

3. Seize the high ground.

There are principles or ideas or facts that generate credibility. For example, Democracy is one of those. When I gave the speech at Olney Hall, one of the reasons I started on the subject of Democracy and how we practice democracy is because democracy is a value that is almost universally subscribed to, at least in talk, by everybody in the country. Therefore, whoever possesses democracy wins the argument. So the first thing you do is go for the trump card. Build that into what you are doing. Nobody can come up after you and say, “Well, we stand for democracy.” They have got to be second in line on that one. If you get the first shot at it, you seize the high ground. You seize the flag that is going to win the arguments. In debates that is part of the competition that happens – certainly in political debates.

I engaged in several debates as a candidate for Congress – more than 30 years ago. You are always battling for that high ground. Do not forget it. Go right for it. Never give it up. If there is something to be fought over, that is what you fight over. Do not fight over the small stuff: fight over the big stuff first, the rest falls in place. Part of the thinking that has to go into it ahead of time is figuring out what that high ground is and how to lay that out in a way that works with the rest of the stuff that you want to talk about.

4. Marshal statistics.

People love statistics. Statistics have a kind of built-in credibility they do not deserve; but nonetheless, they have it. You can make a statistic say anything you want it to say. It is standard brand practice of politics … everybody has their set of statistics that they are going to lay out. George Bush, for example, says “my tax cut gives an average of a thousand dollars to 800 million people, or whatever”. In fact, of course, when you are working with an average, that is great because you can give all the money on one end and no money on the other end and you can average it out and it sounds like a lot of money that is going into everybody’s pockets. But that said about statistics, have your own. Weave them in. People want to hear numbers. Numbers give a kind of grounding to what you are talking about. Whether it is talking about numbers of troops or numbers of dead people or numbers of times that we went to the U.N. and refused, or whatever.

People hear numbers and, unlike words, they are far easier to digest. While they will not carry the argument, you need to have them in order to be in the game. Again, that is part of the reason that we do our research and read our newspapers. When you see an interesting set of numbers, remember them! For example, in that speech at Olney Hall, somewhere I had seen a figure that said 70 percent of the members of Congress had never traveled outside the United States prior to becoming members of Congress. I found that to be an extraordinary statistic, so I threw it in there. It tells us an awful lot about who is making decisions and how they are making those decisions. In my head I have a little file of those things that I try to remember as much as I can. At this stage of 57 years old, it is getting a little harder.

Next:

5. Do not exaggerate.

Never! It is the kiss of death in making an argument to overstate your position. Anyone worth their salt, who is arguing back against you, will knock your pins right out from under you, right away. I certainly would in that situation and anybody else will. Everybody wants to make their point as strongly as they can, so there is a real temptation to say not just that George Bush stinks, but that George Bush is the worst human being that ever walked the face of the earth, right? I mean certainly, emotionally, we feel that, but it is one of those statements that, hey, it may take you a long way, but your audience will be scattered out behind you. Most do not end up in the same position. When they hear an overstatement, they will say, “What bullshit! Who is this guy?” It discredits the rest of what you are doing.

You are far better off to always to understate your position. If push comes to shove, you can crank it up when you need to crank it up, but do not overstate it because it will lose you audience rather than gain you audience and it’s a bad discipline in the first place. Part of what you want to establish about yourself as a teacher, and we obviously want to establish about ourselves, as a political position, that we can be believed. Once your audience has a question about whether you can be believed or not, you are sunk! When you stand up there to talk to people, you have to generate a sense of credibility. That is going to come out of your words as well as your physical mannerisms when you are up there, as well as the tone of your voice and all that other stuff. Once you start overstating, then you start crippling yourself. So, no exaggeration!

6. Do not yell.

This has nothing to do with volume here. We are going to address subjects that we are really angry about, while standing up talking to people. We are tempted to shout “what idiots these guys are”. I am sure everybody who went to the marches and heard most of the speakers has a good sampling of what “shouting” is about and why you do not want to do it. People can stand up and, at the top of their voice, rail and rail and rail and rail. The audience will disconnect from that. Anger can be a very useful tool in communicating, but it has to be used really selectively. You have to use it to describe things where you know you are going to get a sympathetic response. That is what happens after you have laid the base for it.

For example, if we were talking about the genocide of Cambodia, you do not start off yelling about what bastards these people are who killed two million of their own citizens. First, you have to walk people through what happened: what this meant, who died, and how. You do that, not in the angry voice, but in the calm voice, the calmest voice you have. You only let the anger out at the very last when everybody else feels it at the same time that you do. Then, it is great. Before that, it is an absolute turn-off, particularly in these conflict situations. What it looks like, if you are in a debate situation, is that you have lost your cool. You are not on control of your material. You are so unable to articulate a response that you have to launch into vituperation. So chain your dog up when you stand up to talk to people. They do not want to hear it. By the time they do want to hear it, you are going to know that. You are probably not even going to have to do it then. They are going to feel that. But that anger has to come back from them before you send it out and, hopefully, it will come in response to the rest of the argument that you are making. But do not jump the gun.

7. Whenever possible use your opponent to discredit him.

Today there is an article in the Marin Independent Journal saying that Rumsfeld admitted that there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. When someone brings up, “well, you know, we had to do this to keep them from blowing up our buildings”, you can answer “well, goddamn, Rumsfeld does not even believe that!” There are times when these guys will come out and say things that you want to wrap around their neck. This is the format in which to do that. When they make claims, you use their claims against them. Or if they have changed their position, you know both positions, and you use one position against the other position. But you can win when the issue becomes not simply your position against their position, but their credibility about their own position. Then you are even further ahead than you would have been otherwise. And you should feel free to use that as a technique.

Another corresponding technique that you should feel free to use is to:

8. Attack by association.

Of course, this is not permitted in legal circles and is one of the definitions of bad manners — guilt by association, but it really works. When you talk about George Bush’s empire, for example, as I did in the Olney Hall speech, I went back through the history of empire and said, “This is not just George Bush. This is Julius Caesar; this is Adolph Hitler; this is Joseph Stalin” – to put things in context by associating them with like, corresponding things. And this is a technique that is usable. Obviously, you do not want to overuse it and the standard overuse is calling everybody Hitler. At least in our era that has been the standard overuse. You don’t want to overuse that, but you do want to point out that when Trent Lott talks about black people that he sounds like James Easly.

There are situations out there where your audience, while they may be unclear about one example, with the association you are making with it, then they are clear about it. For example, Proposition 54, this sounds like Mississippi! Hey! Everybody knows about Mississippi. Proposition 54 they may not know about, but Mississippi, they know about. So finding those kinds of associations is useful, so that people can see better what you are talking about.

9. Do not use fillers.

In your presentation, discipline yourself when you talk and do not use spacers in your speech: “you know” is the classic. Or “umm, uhh,” whatever. You are much better off when you talk simply allowing dead air than you are sticking in “you know” or nervous mannerisms. When you speak, you always get nervous about being silent. But that is one of the things that you have to get over; because if you are nervous about being silent, then everybody else is going to be really nervous about you being silent, too. If you are simply silent and comfortable with that, it will just come off as a pause and give people a chance to kind of suck air into their brains. When you start putting in those little pieces of stuff to clear up the dead air, you start coming off as inarticulate and you do not want people to think that you are stumbling your way through these words, even if you are.

Next is:

10. Do not run on.

Make your point. Move on. Do not feel like – again, this is a sphere of dead air – that you have not said enough, that somehow the volume is going to be what determines how well your argument is made. It is not volume. Believe me, it is not volume. You want to make your points as clearly as you can and there is space in that for repetition, which I will deal with in a few minutes. You do not want to just be just saying the same thing over and over to them because people pick up on that, and you are going to start losing them. My premise is the longer you ask people to listen, the more you better have to say. You do not have to have an enormous amount to say. It is perfectly acceptable to have a little bit to say and just try to say that as clearly and as concisely as you can. If you do that, people will hear it.

Now there is a place for repetition, so let me jump to that point, which is: it is necessary to repeat yourself, but you have to do that at strategic moments. For example, never start a speech and make a point without, by the end of the speech, coming back to the point and reminding people that you made it. It is the old journalism catch phrase: “Tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em; tell it to ‘em; tell ‘em what you told ‘em.” It works in speeches as well. If it is endless repetition, it does not work. You do have to remind people and if back here in the speech, you have got people’s juices up, up here in the speech you want to remind them about that juice. You want them to remember how moved they were, so you want to bring some of the same material back through again, especially when you come to tie it off. At the Olney Hall speech, I started off on the theme of democracy and how we practice it and worked our way through the empire and the political situation and what we can do about it and then got back to the theme – ended on the theme of democracy again, so that it ties the whole thing together.

Next on my list is:

11. Use humor whenever you can.

This really helps. Now most situations we are going to be talking about things that are pretty serious stuff and so it is not going to be a laugh a minute. But if you can throw a few lines in there that let people release their energy by laughing, it really helps them get next to the material. For example, in the Olney Hall speech when I was talking about democracy in Iraq and building democracy in Iraq and used the line, “How are we going to bring democracy to Iraq; we can’t even bring it to Florida!” Little zingers like that are very useful. If you are in a situation where you have a question-and-answer period, they are particularly useful, if you have not brought them in yet. You want to do it early in the question-and-answer period, just to let people’s energy bleed off. And when you let them laugh, then you let them open out from that.

And the final thing on my list is:

12. Use lists.

Lists make things easier to digest if, instead of making three points in succession, you say, “Look, there are three points I want to make. One, two, three.” It helps people remember if you give them a list. Now you can overuse that, again. If your speech is twelve different lists and you’re constantly going, “1A, 2Z,” you are going to lose people there. But the one, two, three thing really helps people digest what you are talking about.

OK.

So all these are some kind of general rules about how to approach just the task of making an argument. Now in the last part I want to give you an idea of just a very simple, basic five-part outline for the progression of making an argument.

5 Part Progression for Making an Argument:

1. The Set-up.

The first one is what I call “the Set-up” - how you start out. You want to connect with your audience, so define the mutuality of the situation; draw everybody into the process which you are about to take them on. For example, in the Olney Hall speech, I did that by starting out talking about democracy and the practice of democracy and how we are all citizens and we all share this together and we all have this responsibility on ourselves as citizens. In addition to preparing the turf for what was to follow, it also identifies you and the audience, then pulls you all together into a kind of common position. It sets the emotional tone for what is to follow and gets people into listening. It does not have to be a précis of what is to come, by any means, except on a kind of emotional level. But it has to be something that gets them prepared for listening to you - whatever that device is.

2. The Proposition.

The second step in this outline is what I call “the Proposition”. This is where you want to make the basic declarative point. Again, using the Olney Hall speech as an example, the declarative point was the nature of the empire that we are suddenly creating. It is your fundamental declaration of what is going on; your bottom line. Here it is, folks. Here is what we are up against. This should grab peoples’ attention; should focus the rest of the speech for you; and should set the underlying tone for everything that follows.

3. The Proof.

The next section of the speech is what I call “the Proof”. Once you have made the proposition, now you have to elaborate on it: why this is true; how this is true; what the evidence for this is; and how does this operate? In the Olney Hall speech I did that by breaking down the Government’s arguments for invading Iraq. One, two, three and using each of those to establish the point that I had already made about what was truly going on here, at the same time breaking down the Government’s rationale for its own activities. That proof is where you get to marshal the information that you have brought to this; where you particularly should – if you have not earlier in the speech – made your anticipatory moves and addressed the arguments that you know are out there floating against the proposition that you have already made. Although you are not making those arguments in a negative way, you are making them as a positive assertion about your own proposition, but, in effect, they do the exact same thing.

4. The Solution.

The fourth section is what I call “the Solution”. We have a proposition, we have proved that proposition, so now what do we do about it? This is the other place where you have to do your homework in terms of figuring out what is it you were going to ask people to do? Never stand up and make an argument unless – without asking somebody to do something. Even if it is just “Vote for me.” Whatever. When you have the floor, you want to use that as an opportunity to plug people in to some action and you want it to be action that relates to everything that you have already said, so that this action ought to be obviously designed to address the proposition that you have made and the proof that you have already supplied.

5. The Send-Off.

Then finally, the fifth section I call “the Send-Off”, which is: you want to wrap this thing up. You have a whole argument. You want to restate your whole argument in a summary kind of fashion. You want to highlight all the emotional themes that you have been playing on up to this point. You want to emote. You want to call those into as much of a crescendo as you possibly can. The goal here is to use the intimacy you have built with this audience throughout this talking period to galvanize them in one final statement.

And there you’ve got it! Those are the five parts to a very simple approach. Obviously, there are plenty of other approaches for how to organize a speech, but in my years of political stumping, this outline pretty much figures it all. Just about every speech I have ever given fits somewhere into this. For those of you who are mystified about how do you put a speech together or how do you put an argument together, here is a real simple form to follow that gives you plenty of latitude in terms of where you want to go with it. It gives you a kind of road map to pursue. It is my assumption that in all the other forms of talking that people want to be able to do: that if you can do this one – if you can sit down and figure out five or ten-minute statements to make to a group of people to persuade them to your position - you can handle all the lesser ones.

In terms of standing there and having a conversation back and forth with someone, if you already have marshaled yourself to a degree that you can do that, then back and forth is no problem. It is just a question of selecting from your stash of goodies, because you have already figured out what your goodies are and how you are going to make this argument. Then you just have to pick and choose. I think this approach is the kind of discipline – ultimate discipline - in this process. In terms of politics, this comes as close to meeting the standard situation as anything 9
else that I know of. The standard situation is you are at a meeting and someone says, “Well, we have a guest here today from the Ruth Group who wants to talk to us a little about what has been happening in Iraq.” You have ten minutes on the agenda to stand up and go for it. That is what most of day-to-day politics is about. In terms of politicians, this is their lives. Believe me - that and raising money.

Question-Answer Session Question:

The art of listening and being a politician. . . (inaudible). . .

Harris: The question was basically how does listening to other people and what they are feeling play into this process. I think obviously listening to people is extraordinarily important in all situations, but it means different things in different situations. And I do not think that we should get them confused.

In the situation I am talking about, we are not talking about the one-on-one psychological listening where somebody has something they need to say and they need you to hear it before they are going to be able to hear anything from you. That is not manageable in a group situation. You do no want to get yourself into that. Do not start off by saying, “Well, I would like to hear what other folks think first before I talk.” Boy! Whoo! That is dynamite. It is dynamite in a group situation where you are standing up front and they are all out there. You cannot control it. Once it goes off, then you are stuck trying to ride along and, grab the reins. It is hard to do! It really is! So when you are giving a speech, if you want to get to that point, then get to it in questions and answers and then you can indulge and listen to somebody. You do not want to hear what people have to say until you have told them what you have to say. Then work your way back.

Now when you are in a one-on-one situation, it is altogether different. I am not going to claim particular expertise. There are people in this group who have far more expertise at how to work one-to-one situations than perhaps I do. But I do think it is important that you listen. I do think it is important that in all situations you be perceived as listening. When you stand up to talk, the listening that I am talking about amounts to the listening you have done ahead of time, before you ever showed up in the hall. So that you know what is on people’s minds or you know what the arguments out there are You know what the points that need to be addressed are. That is what listening amounts to when you are in the position of having to stand up and talk to people. Do not interpret this as listening in the immediate situation as if you have to sit there and hear. You should have done your hearing before you walked in so that you know how you are going to have to talk to these people. You cannot do it in that situation, because hearing and listening does not happen then.

What happens if you throw it open is that whoever in the audience is out there who has the biggest mouth and the least amount of intimidation is going to stand up and run their mouth. Then suddenly you are into a whole different dynamic. When you deal with people one to one - listen. But, if you are trying to make an argument, you do not want to just get caught up in kind of psychotherapeutic responses. It is not a very good situation for psychotherapy usually when you are in there trying to make an argument. It may be a good situation for listening and hearing what people have to say, but often what can happen in that listening situation is that you lose your momentum. Your argument gets dragged down. And the truth is that you want them to hear what you have to say. If you get out of there without hearing what they have to say, well, it is okay, if you have made your point. That is the kind of hard-edged rule.

Question: (How to stay on your point, not get lost in details, etc.?)

Harris: If you are in a debate situation – let’s say you and another person are in front of a group of people - and he (or she) is doing one side and you are doing the other side - you do not want to get caught up in the dynamics with him or her. You are after them. They are your foil. They are just there to help you make your argument to your audience. So you do not want to get caught up in their argument. Where you lose it in debates is when you do get caught up in that dynamic. So you do not have to address every point they make. You have to address every point they make that hits home.

So when they are talking, you are watching the audience. When you watch the audience, you should be able to tell what is happening in response to what your opponent says. If the audience is yawning, you are in great shape! If they are sitting there on the edge of their seats going “Whooo,” you know, then you have to go after it. Do not get caught up in competition with your opponent. I remember the first time I was in a congressional debate as a candidate against a Republican and that was a really hard thing for me to learn. I wanted to get in this guy’s chest, you know! It is easy to lose sight of a larger prize there. The larger prize is always the audience. The rest does not matter. In that situation, part of the emotionally hard thing to accept is that your opponent is not going to like you. They are just not! Most people I know, we all want to get along. We all want to be liked. I want this guy to say to me, “Gee, that is great!” But it is not going to happen.

Question: (Comment about looking at people you are speaking to and remembering the point and continuing to make it)

Harris: I think it is important for everyone to adopt the discipline that when you speak to a group of people, you look at the central group. But not as just the “group.” First, if you have a side-to-side situation, then in your physical posture throughout the speech, you want to be working side to side. You do not want to just stand and do this (face forward), because the people out here and here (on the sides) lose connection with you. Every now and then you want to be over here (facing the sides). If it is a big group, what I will traditionally do is pick people out in the audience and talk to them for a bit and then talk to that one for a bit. But it is part of making your connection to them to not look over their heads. If you have notes and you need to refer to them, then look down and then look up. If you are going to read a speech, then you ought to learn the speech well enough that you only need to refer to your text as a kind of outline. See a key word here or a key word there to just keep you going. You have to have it at least half memorized. Otherwise, you are not going to be able to connect out there with the audience.

Question: (Comment about being concise and sticking to point again)

Harris: The point about avoiding tangents is really important. All of us tend to have various details that we are really enamored of or favorite theories. Conspiracy theories are a particular example of this. Then you get lost in first explaining and inevitably the argument ends up all convoluted. That George Bush really did know about September 11th ahead of time and the way we know this is blah, blah, blah . . . . Stick to your point! Keep moving – you should have, in your mind, a notion of the beginning and the end to the argument that you are making. You want to keep a straight line going from one to the other. You do not want to end up curving around over here. Because each time you curve people fall off your train.

Comment from Will Kirkland: I think that is even true in the conversations you have in the supermarket in line. One of the things we all need to keep telling ourselves: what point or two do I feel strongly about and can I come up with a short argument about. I witness in all of us: people want to say everything they know in the five minutes they have. Get to be an expert in one thing and once you are an expert in A, go on to B. This really will help us. The second thing is - the whole point of this - is to persuade others. This is the point of us as people and the point of our politics. It is not an occasion to vent, to release our anger, or to do a bunch of other stuff. In most of our conversations we are trying to convince people and make us grow.

Harris: One way to visualize that is: you are making possibilities for people. Do not expect to come away with a victory – particularly in these one-to-one encounters. When you are giving a speech to a group, they at least have the commitment to be there to hear you, so you have already got half a leg up on the situation in terms of your audience. Often when you are in one-to-one situations, you do not have any leg up at all and the chances of convincing somebody who starts out feeling differently from you in that one-to-one encounter are probably slim. So what you are looking for is: there is an opportunity here to plant a few seeds. Just to get a couple lines in or to get to make a point that is going to sit with this person when they drive off in their car thinking, “God, that asshole! Who was that guy anyway! What was that he said? What was that about the . . . ”

One of the phrases we used to use when I was organizing against military conscription was, “organizing is like a pinball machine: the ball bounces eight to ten times before it hits something.” You never quite know when you are doing this kind of work where it is going to bounce and what it is going to end up hitting. Often what you are doing is making this act of faith - throwing this intellectual material, as it were, out into the wind and seeing where it gets taken. I am amazed at how it bounces. People still come up to me in a supermarket and say, “You know, I heard you at Boulder in 1968, and I remembered … I thought about that for a year and a half. Then I got drafted . . . ”. In terms of your own juice in engaging in this kind of work, you have to act on faith. Because you are not necessarily going to see the results. Okay!