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Left, GNP candidate Lee Myung-bak. Center, Independent Lee Hoi-chang. Right, UNDP standard-bearer Chung Dong-young |
 By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
``It's not what you say. It's what people hear.''
Leading American political consultant Frank Luntz offered this piece of crucial advice that will make political communication work in a recent book titled ``Words That Work."
Luntz, a Republican pollster and president of Luntz Research Companies, observed how your average listener perceives what you say is even more real than how you perceive yourself.
``The key to successful communication is to take the imaginative leap of putting your self right into your listener's shoes to know what they are thinking and feeling in the deepest recesses of their mind and heart,'' he said.
With the advice focused on audience-friendly communication, Luntz suggests 10 rules for effective campaign language in the book.
These rules are: simplicity, brevity, credibility, consistency, offering something new, sound and texture matter, speak aspirationally, visualize, ask a question, and provide context and relevance.
The more candidates' speeches fit these rules, the better their speeches will be, Luntz indicated.
With the presidential election about two weeks away, presidential hopefuls have delivered numerous campaign speeches at rallies, debates and on television ads.
There are distinctive characteristics in campaign speeches delivered by the top three presidential candidates ― Lee Myung-bak of the Grand National Party (GNP), independent Lee Hoi-chang and Chung Dong-young of the United New Democratic Party (UNDP).
These candidates basically meet the standards the American political consultant suggested, but each of them revealed their own drawbacks failing to meet the criterion for effective speeches.
Lee Myung-bak: Simple but Poor at Visualizing
The frontrunner has used simple, clear and straightforward words in his campaign speeches.
The theme of his speeches boils down to a simple sentence of ``Let's go for it because it will make us better off.''
The former Seoul mayor is obviously not a leader of political rhetoric.
Rather, Lee dismissed his rival Chung's eloquent speaking style, arguing that his words are empty.
He often makes excuses for his blunt but extremely clear speech style, saying: ``Although I might not be as eloquent as my counterpart from the pro-government party, I can confidently say that I am a much better leader than him when it comes to making things work.''
His preference in words for clarity and simplicity comply with the rules, Simplicity: Use Small Words, and Brevity: Use Short Sentences.
The GNP nominee's speeches also go along with Credibility and Consistency Matters because he has remained focused on the economy as a top policy priority.
Lee also never wavered from his neo-liberalist economic point of view in his speeches stating: ``Growth has the answer to all policy problems.''
Lee, however, failed to take on the criteria, Sound and Texture Matter, and Visualize.
Luntz said, ``A string of words that have the same first letter, the same sound, or the same syllabic cadence are more memorable than a random collection of sounds.''
The candidate has not met these standards and also seemed to be inactive in ``painting a vivid picture.''
Chung Dong-young: Aspirant, but Poor at Offering Something New
The trend in UNDP candidate Chung's speeches is that he prefers using contrasting phrases and making clear his pro or con stance on a particular issue.
Focusing on a particular theme, Chung tends to characterize the issue in question as a controversy by taking a side.
Recently he portrayed himself as ``a good man,'' while describing his political enemy _ the GNP's Lee ― as bad, for his pledges and his vision that would only polarize the social classes in the community between a handful of winners and the majority of losers.
Chung also took on the GNP's so-called ``lost decade'' discourse by defining the past 10 years of the pro-government party as a ``wining decade.''
With the polarizing characterization, Chung followed Luntz's guidelines of simplicity and brevity.
Compared with his two rivals, Chung is better in using Luntz's rule seven of Speak Aspirationally.
Luntz said, ``The key to successful aspirational language for products or politics is to personalize and humanize the message to trigger an emotional remembrance.''
Despite his strengths in making sophisticated characterization, Chung seems to fail to meet the rule five of Novelty: Offer Something New.
One of keywords of Chung's campaign slogan is ``family,'' but he seems to fail to make a new definition of an old idea.
The former unification minister has not answered what the term family is for and why he chose the theme for his bid for the presidency.
Lee Hoi-chang: Consistent, but Uses Big Words
Independent candidate Lee Hoi-chang was once known as a man of integrity and principle.
Since he joined the presidential race, the former Supreme Court judge said his goal is to end ``the leftist regime'' in the Dec. 19 election and he decided to run for the presidency again to ``save the country in peril.''
He pledged he would set ``the rule of law'' in place, if elected president.
Lee has pledged to revise the Constitution, overhaul politics and the government, and revisit North Korea policy, if elected president.
He repeated the same old campaign speeches he did in his previous two election bids and in this sense, his words are credible (rule three) and consistent (rule four).
However, the former prime minister's drawback is that he hardly pulls the strings that get heads nodding.
Lee used several big words such as the leftist regime, country in peril and the rule of law, which goes against Luntz's rule one of Simplicity: Use small words.
He is also poor at helping his audience draw a clear picture with his speeches, revealing his weakness in visualizing (rule eight).
Voters' Double Standard
Eloquence is widely considered as one of core qualities for presidential hopefuls.
Communication experts said candidates' right word choice helps them become a trendsetter in campaigns and effective political communication can change listeners' attitude in favor of the speaker.
In this sense, a recent in-depth survey conducted on 49 faculty members of nationwide universities found a seemingly contrasting result.
The Chosun Ilbo newspaper evaluated the political communication skills of the top three presidential candidates and found UNDP candidate Chung Dong-young won the highest score in the survey, standing at 2.9 on a scale of 5 in the survey.
Independent candidate Lee Hoi-chang (2.69) and GNP nominee Lee Myung-bak (2.65) followed.
Prof. Park Sung-hee of Ewha Womans University said the survey result finding frontrunner candidate Lee Myung-bak marking the lowest score in political communication skill could reveal that voters are using a double-standard in selecting their preferred candidate in an election.
Park said participants in the survey separated the former Seoul mayor's other leadership qualities such as ethics, integrity and interpersonal skills from his strong managerial skills and chose him for his latter quality, while disregarding his ethics.
hkang@koreatimes.co.kr
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