Presence.

My job got easy this week.

I often write about body language in this blog. Three examples presented themselves.

My premise is that most political communication is accidental or unintentional.  It isn't the denoted words we say, it's how we say them. Or what physical things we do. Body language. 

Katie Britt, State of the Union response

There is no need for me to pile on with commentary on Katie Britt's response to the State of the Union address. Likely every reader has seen a snippet or two by now. It was beyond weird. How she spoke overwhelmed what she said. This example is too easy.

Biden's presence at his State of the Union address -- his look, his tone of voice -- are also likely already familiar to readers. 

No need for me to pile on here, either. We all saw it or heard about it. He looked far better than Democrats feared and far better than Republicans predicted. A solid looking Joe Biden are the first words out of every commentator's mouth.  At least to the eyes of Boomers, he looks fully "with it." He has tread on his tires. 

U.S. readers pay little attention to Canada. My college classmate Sandford Borins had a long career as a professor at the University of Toronto, where he is now an Emeritus Professor of Public Management. He writes about campaigns, body language, and archetypes. I find very useful his notion of campaign positioning which boils down to three stock characters: Fool, Knave, or Hero. Each campaign considers its candidate the Hero. It then marshals images and incidents to show the opponent to be disqualified for office by either being incompetent -- the Fool -- or morally wrong -- the Knave. Republicans call Biden disqualified by being feeble and senile, a Fool. Democrats describe Trump as the insurrectionist, document-hoarder, tax cheat, and rapist -- the Knave.

Borins has his own blog where he publishes about weekly, www.sandfordborins.com. This week he presented a bit of video that showed two examples of debate smackdown by Canadian politicians. We can see the power of tone and body language, showing either strength, moral clarity, and purpose or a show of a helpless gesture. Here is how he described the video that he introduced in his blog:

The exchange in the 1984 debate with then Prime Minister John Turner about Turner’s ratification of outgoing Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s numerous eleventh-hour patronage appointments. Turner twice said that he had no option. Mulroney didn’t accept that and argued that the country deserved better than the Liberals’ old attitudes and old stories of patronage appointments (logos). He made his point by throwing Turner’s words back at him with the repeated accusation “you had an option, sir!” (pathos). Mulroney referred to Turner as “sir” and used the phrase “if I may say respectfully” but the force of his accusation, accompanied by pointing at Turner like a prosecutor, was clear. In contrast, Turner’s repeated phrase, “I had no option,” accompanied by exculpatory spreading of his hands, sounded and looked weak. Admitting political impotence when one takes office is no way to keep the office. This exchange was that rare moment in political debate, a knockout punch.

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I don't expect Biden and Trump to meet in a debate this time around or to see exchanges like these. Even a guilty verdict in one of Trump's cases won't be a knockout punch. Trump has already inoculated himself against that by telling his voters that he is the Hero of unfair prosecution and the Knave is the politically-motivated Biden/Jack Smith/George Soros crew.

I see Biden as remaining vulnerable to going from the Hero alternative to Trump-the-Knave into the incompetent Fool again. The way to avoid it is simple, but it is out of everyone's control. Just stay healthy and vigorous, like the guy we saw Thursday evening. He looked good. Presidential.

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