--- title: The Art of the Acceptance Speech | TIME description: As McCain prepares for his big night, TIME's political correspondents examine past speeches that worked and didn't canonical: https://time.com/video/UlW5TlOn/ og:title: The Art of the Acceptance Speech og:description: As McCain prepares for his big night, TIME's political correspondents examine past speeches that worked and didn't og:url: https://time.com/video/UlW5TlOn/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/UlW5TlOn/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Art of the Acceptance Speech twitter:description: As McCain prepares for his big night, TIME's political correspondents examine past speeches that worked and didn't twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/UlW5TlOn/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # The Art of the Acceptance 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: The Art of the Acceptance Speech [Watch (HLS stream): The Art of the Acceptance Speech](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/UlW5TlOn.m3u8) (5:17)  _Published 2009-04-08. As McCain prepares for his big night, TIME's political correspondents examine past speeches that worked and didn't_ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:08 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [President Trump Made a Live Speech During the Democratic Debate. The Networks Didn't Bite](/video/jhovHeUx/) ### President Trump Made a Live Speech During the Democratic Debate. The Networks Didn't Bite [Oscars 2015: Patricia Arquette's Acceptance Speech](/video/4q78Oygo/) ### Oscars 2015: Patricia Arquette's Acceptance Speech [McCain Jokes on the Trail](/video/7e8vWwZw/) ### McCain Jokes on the Trail --- ## Transcript >> Let me say first that I accept the nomination of the Democratic Party. >> With the deep awareness of the responsibility heard by your chest, I accept your nomination for the Presidency of the United States. >> Acceptable speech is extraordinarily important. It has been in many times in the past that, often a pivot point for the candidate. >> Candidates have to think of a series of introductions and the acceptance speech is usually the most important introduction. It signals the beginning of the final stage of the campaign, before our campaign and it's a way in which the candidate tells people who he is and what he wants to do. >> The change we need is coming because I've seen it. >> He has to be very clear about that and he has to be in some way inspiring because the most important judgment that people make about our president is whether I want this guy to be in my house for the next four years. >> But where is it written that we must act if we do not care. >> The challenge for John McCain is to not get psyched out. A model for John McCain is George Herbert Walker Bush, also considered a speaker who wasn't that good, also considered someone who'd never excelled at reading a tele prompter. >> From the cities to the suburbs to the loneliest town on the quietest street. >> A really memorable address that turned that election around. I mean, Dukakis was way ahead in the polls and Bush was widely assumed to have this over foot in his mouth, unable to put two senses together. And then in, you know, a speech that was written by Peggy Noonan, probably the most politically clever acceptance which I've seen, Bush really turned it around that night. >> And I will keep America moving forward, always forward, for a better America, for an endless enduring dream and a thousand points of life. This is my mission and I will complete it. >> It not only was a good performance, a great performance by the standards of what he normally delivered but it was a speech written in his voice that he was very comfortable with in terms of its message and its cadence. McCain needs to find a way to do that. He needs to give the speech of his life to show people what's in his heart and if he does that, it will be a big boost for him and of convention that's coming that's coming very late in a cycle. >> The time is now to limit Federal spending, to insist on a stable monetary reform and to free ourselves from imported oil. >> A lot of these convention speeches are punctuated with key moments, lines that the writers and the deliverer of the speech know, will get news coverage and may well go down in history. >> Sometimes there is a line varied in a speech that is going to come back and hunt the candidate for the rest of the campaign. Walter Mondale, I'm gonna raise your taxes. >> Mr. Reagan will raise taxes and so will I. He won't tell you, I just did. >> Which is, yes, smart campaign team decided that truth telling was the way to differentiate Walter Mondale from Ronald Reagan whom they were trying to portray as the sort of out of touch elderly gentleman who saw America and the situation with the economy and with the world and through rose colored glasses. Unfortunately, that's not the way the American people work. That was a great line in the hall, people appreciated his political courage, but nationally and from the Republican's point of view that was a disaster. >> My opponent, Ronald, will rule out raising taxes but I will and the Congress will push me to raise taxes-- >> I think when George Herbert Walker Bush said read my lips no new taxes, it set a very goo contrast with Michael Dukakis. >> To them, read my lips. No new taxes. >> It helped him win the election but it also tied his hands and then created a big political problem when he ran for election four years later. >> Two years later, in 1990, there were new taxes that he was proposing. >> I reaffirm by life- long conviction that truth is the clue that holds government together not only government but civilization itself. >> You know, presidency is our most intimate office; he lives in our living rooms. >> It's just wrong for seniors to have to choose between food and medicine, while the big-- >> And this is his tryout. This is his screen test when people look at him and say, wow, do I trust that guy to give me bad news over the next four years? Do I wanna go work with that guy? Do I trust him to keep me safe? 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