Accepting the nod
By the Wolf Blitzer Reports staff
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- When public speaking scholars were asked to list the 100 greatest American speeches of the 20th century, only three nomination acceptance speeches made the cut: William Jennings Bryan accepting the 1900 Democratic nomination, Adlai Stevenson accepting the 1952 Democratic nomination, and Barry Goldwater accepting the 1964 Republican nomination.
Yet despite their oratorical achievements, all three of those speakers lost the subsequent elections.
Bryan lost to William McKinley, Stevenson to Dwight Eisenhower, and Goldwater to Lyndon Johnson.
Goldwater's speech may even have cost him some votes, with lines like this one:
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
That declaration drew loud applause from Goldwater's conservative supporters, but Democrats cited it to argue that Goldwater was outside the political mainstream.
When Walter Mondale accepted the Democratic nomination in 1984, he may have expected to gain points for candor with these lines:
"Let's tell the truth. It must be done, it must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did."
Republicans used that disclosure to help paint Mondale as a tax-and-spend liberal, and Mondale lost, too.
Four years later, the Republican nominee, George H.W. Bush, tried to use the tax issue to his advantage. The result -- this infamous line:
"My opponent won't rule out raising taxes, but I will. And Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I'll say no, and they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again. And I'll say to them: Read my lips. No new taxes."
That memorable pledge helped put the elder Bush into the White House, but later, he raised taxes, and the pledge game back to haunt him. He failed to win a second term.
Sometimes, the problem isn't so much what you say, as when you say it. In his 1972 acceptance speech, Democrat George McGovern used the theme, "Come Home America."
The problem was that most of America already had come home, and gone to bed.
A battle over the party platform had delayed McGovern's speech until the middle of the night, and his remaining TV audience was largely confined to political junkies and insomniacs.
