--- title: How Important Is the Keynote Speech? | TIME description: TIME looks back at memorable, and not so memorable, keynote speeches at political conventions` canonical: https://time.com/video/3PnNFmeR/ og:title: How Important Is the Keynote Speech? og:description: TIME looks back at memorable, and not so memorable, keynote speeches at political conventions` og:url: https://time.com/video/3PnNFmeR/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/3PnNFmeR/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Important Is the Keynote Speech? twitter:description: TIME looks back at memorable, and not so memorable, keynote speeches at political conventions` twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/3PnNFmeR/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # How Important Is the Keynote Speech? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: How Important Is the Keynote Speech? [Watch (HLS stream): How Important Is the Keynote Speech?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/3PnNFmeR.m3u8) (8:08)  _Published 2008-08-21. TIME looks back at memorable, and not so memorable, keynote speeches at political conventions`_ --- Jul 27, 2023 12:59 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [President Trump Delivers Keynote Speech at Value Voters Summit](/video/K7HUkKoA/) ### President Trump Delivers Keynote Speech at Value Voters Summit [TIME Raw: Watch Obama's Keynote Speech at SXSW](/video/YMFqXJae/) ### TIME Raw: Watch Obama's Keynote Speech at SXSW [Vice President Joe Biden Gives Keynote Speech](/video/NPfy89zq/) ### Vice President Joe Biden Gives Keynote Speech --- ## Transcript >> I'm Barbara Jordan. I'm a keynote speaker. >> The keynote addresses design to set the tone of convention.- Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels. >> It's designed to sell to the public, to the viewers the candidate. >> We will follow the man who [ unk ] Franklin Delano Roosevelt. >> Without the candidate himself or herself having to do it, keynotes have often done other things like launch political careers. The real purpose of keynote speech is to-- is to introduce the next generation. >> That spot has often been giving-- given to some up and coming star at the party. Susan Molinari for the Republicans in 1996, Harold Ford the Democrats in 2000. >> America and Democratic delegates the choice before us-- a choice that many ways weighs heavier on my generation than any other. >> And of course, quite memorably recently when Barack Obama in 2004.- The hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. >> Barack Obama then not even a U. S. Senator, but a candidate for U. S. Senate from Illinois when he delivered that fantastic speech in Boston, it put him on the map nationally. >> Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. >> That was really the moment at which Barack Obama burst on to the national stage. >> It was, you know, one of the most riveting addresses that I've seen in the convention. >> That all across the country from Florida to Oregon-- >> You can divide Barack Obama's life into a lot of segments, but the 2004 keynote address he gave really is probably the cleanest before and after you'll see not just in his life, but probably in American politics. >> And this country will reclaim as promised and out of this-- >> He went from someone who no one had heard off considered by insiders to be an up- and- comer to someone who has then on a trajectory from that point forward to be where he is today, the possible next president of the United States. There may be more significant turning points in American history, but that one is right up there. >> Mr. Chairman, I'm honored to be here tonight to nominate my friend Michael Dukakis for president of the United States. >> Up until 2004 in my recollection at least, the keynote speeches that I saw were memorable for their awfulness. The only time that you actually remember them was when they were famously bad like Bill Clinton speech in 1988 when after this long, long, long oration he said and in conclusion and got a rousing round of applause. >> But what's interesting to me is that often the most memorable keynote speeches come from conventions held for to nominate a candidate who loses in November. >> In many ways, we are a shining city on a hill. >> It's not necessarily a direct correlation the Mario Cuomo, the governor of New York, gave that incredibly memorable keynote address in 1984 about the shining city on the hill. >> A shining city is perhaps all the President sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems-- >> Mario Cuomo was one of the great orders in the Democratic party and he took to the podium knowing that it was gonna probably be the biggest speech of his life and he delivered. >> A government of humans should elevate itself to a higher order. >> And I remember watching it on TV and hearing-- I think it was John Chancellor from NBC who was anchoring saying, " Can anybody believes that this man will not be the Democratic Party's nominee in 1988 or sometime in the future ?" And of course, Cuomo never chose to run. >> We must make the American people hear our tale of two cities. We must-- >> Mario Cuomo in 1984 really sort of made the case against Reaganism in a more eloquent way, I think than Democrats ever had. >> We must convince them tha we don't have to settle for two cities, that we can have one city indivisible shining for all of its people. >> The problem being there that when you have an order of such great strength it runs the risk that that person is actually going to overshadow the nominee. >> Because after listening to George Bush all these years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds like. >> Another memorable keynote speech was in 1988 when Ann Richards described George Bush as having been born with a silver foot in his mouth. >> Poor George. >> People just died laughing both in the audience and in their living rooms. >> He can't help it. >> Really was a takedown that-- George Herbert Walker Bush never got over. >> He was born with a silver foot in his mouth. >> This is probably the high point of Ann Richard's career even though she was subsequently elected governor. >> And it made her a big star. It made her a nationally famous person. It really roused George H. W. Bush. He really got ticked off to stay in a way that his son, he didn't appreciate. He didn't appreciate that speech especially coming from Ann Richards who was a real Texan unlike George H. W. Bush who was much more of a New England preppy. >> For my family is more important than my party. >> The Zell Miller speech was interesting though because it was, you know, coming from the lips of the Democrat. >> There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future, and that man's name is George W. Bush. >> The Republicans have this ability to find some, you know, renegade Democrat who brings down his former party and Miller frothing at the mouth with angry, bothering, furious speech, which I think a lot of pundits and observers at that time thought might backfire, but short doesn't seem to in the end. >> Once you heard Zell Miller's speech, you knew what the rest of the convention was gonna be like. You knew that it was gonna be a weeklong takedown of John Kerry. >> This is-- >> This is the man who wants to be the Commander in Chief of the U. S. Armed Forces? U. S. U. S. forces armed with what? Spitballs? >> A good keynote speaker is chosen because the nominee thinks he or she will do a good job. The danger though if you pick someone like an Ann Richards, like Barack Obama who's such an amazing speaker is that they can overshadow your own speech. Barack Obama's speech in 2004 was probably for most people a better performance than John Kerry's, but Kerry is still glad he picked him because it gave the convention a real boost and I think it gave Kerry a sense of this convention had some momentum and I think it helped his performance. >> I don't think that this year that is likely to be a problem for either party because each party has managed to nominate, a nominee of extraordinary charisma on their own. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How Important Is the Keynote Speech?","description":"TIME looks back at memorable, and not so memorable, keynote speeches at political conventions`","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/3PnNFmeR/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2008-08-21T13:12:31.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/3PnNFmeR.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/3PnNFmeR/","duration":"PT8M8S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/3PnNFmeR/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```