American News Service
By Marcia Passos Duffy

UNDATED (ANS) -- Janet Larsen Palmer is a communications specialist, but she’s not paying attention to what the presidential candidates say. She’s too busy watching them. Are they squinting? Using their shoulders? Talking with their hands? Laughing? Frowning? These are all cues to what the candidates are really thinking, Palmer said, and could make or break an election.

While the candidates may spend weeks polishing their speeches, what their bodies are telling the audience is often much less scripted and much more powerful, says Palmer. Research has found that nonverbal communication conveys more than 90 percent of a speaker’s message. If nonverbal cues don’t match the verbal message, it creates a subliminal dissonance in the audience and undercuts the speaker’s believability.

“Both candidates need to pay attention to nonverbal communication, because the nonverbal message has a lot do with whether the American people will accept a candidate as the next president or not,” said Palmer, president of Communication Excellence Institute of Los Angeles, a research, consulting and training firm specializing in speech coaching and presentation skills. Palmer—who has been watching candidates for 15 years—assembled a team of five verbal and nonverbal speech coaches, scholars and consultants earlier this month to watch and interpret the acceptance speeches given by the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush. All observers strove to be fair and nonpartisan, said Palmer, who is herself a registered Republican.

The verdict? Bush made more skillful use of language and humor, but Gore’s body language was more in sync with his lips. The speech analysts also have some advice for the two as they talk their way through the rest of the campaign. Bush should stop squinting and show more enthusiasm. Gore ought to stop talking once in a while so his audience has time to applaud.

While Bush’s words at the Republican National Convention conveyed an honest, simple, plain-speaking man from Texas, there was a “nonverbal contradiction to Gov. Bush’s whole approach,” concluded the team. “Nonverbally, he had high tension and only briefly smiled three times,” Palmer said. “Smiling is the single way to build rapport with the audience, but Gov. Bush displayed virtually no warmth.”

“He never once showed enthusiasm or joy,” added professional speech coach Liesel Reinhart, who noted that his eyes were pinched tightly throughout his speech as if he were squinting into sunlight or in pain. “You couldn’t see his eyes because of all that squinting.”

Palmer agreed, and that’s a critical point, she said, because people depend on being able to see someone’s eyes to judge his or her credibility. Gore, on the other hand, shed his stiff image and emerged as a warmer, more accessible candidate with a powerful, well-delivered speech, the team concluded. “Gore looked more presidential, personable and genuine,” Palmer said. “He seemed committed to his causes and full of resolve. He even enjoyed the moment, something Bush didn’t seem to achieve.”

The team, however, gave higher grades to Bush for his speech content. “He spoke in good, oral English and effectively used repetition and short sentences to create dramatic, memorable phrases,” the coaches and consultants said. But his cold, harsh delivery undercut the impact he was trying to make, Palmer added.”

This is in stark contrast with Bush’s father’s acceptance speech,” Palmer said. “President Bush and his son have virtually all the same facial features, but on similar nights of their careers, they had utterly opposite facial gestures.”

“The President had full-body joy, waved his arms and had a huge grin,” Palmer continued. “He savored the moment. His son failed to show any of that excitement. He was pinched, tense and forbidding, with an unfortunate look of confusion. His demeanor was that of a joyless, uncomfortable man.” Gore was able to dispel his notoriously stiff image by smiling often and broadly, using his hands and gesturing, and making good eye contact with the audience. The team approved of Gore’s high-five entrance and long kiss with wife Tipper when he took the stage. “We've never seen this side of Gore. We’ve never seen him passionate,” Palmer said. “Most importantly, Gore’s speech was delivered at an upbeat pace, a far cry from the slow, deliberate speech pattern that for years has made him sound remote, calculated and stiff,” Palmer said.

Palmer said she was stunned after watching Gore make a recent appearance on Good Morning America, where the vice president used such phrases as “I betcha that would work,” “Yup, that’s what I would do” and “Seems to me.” “He used good oral English, something Bush is better at doing, and which Clinton is so masterful at,” Palmer said. “This makes Gore sound human.” Palmer said she’s been impressed by the improvements Gore has made in his communication style over the course of the campaign. “I believe this has helped give him a huge bump in the polls,” she said.

While the team concluded that Gore had warmer and more powerful body language, Bush’s use of humor and his timing won hands down. “Bush’s humor was fabulous,’ Palmer said. “He used timing well, letting the laughter die down before delivering another line,” a technique familiar to stand-up comics.” Gore did not seem to know how to do this and kept talking while the audience was still laughing, clapping or cheering,” she said. “He does not seem to know how to work with the audience’s reaction, which can be interpreted by his listeners as self-serving and inconsiderate.”

“One of the most powerful strategies is pausing to signal key ideas, which Gore has not yet mastered,” she added. “He often kept talking when the effect would have been more inspirational and intense if he had simply paused.”

There’s also room for improvement in Gore’s habit of ending major clauses with an upward “scooping” inflection, Palmer said. “It makes him sound tentative and undercuts his definitiveness and perception of strength. Bush, on the other hand, could benefit by tapping into his “wonderful reactive laughter” Palmer said, when he throws his head back after hearing a joke or reacting to a humorous question. “He also needs to lean forward and smile at the audience.”

But will all the right smiling and gesturing get a candidate to the White House? Palmer points to Bill Clinton’s affable style, which contrasted starkly with Bob Dole’s stiff delivery; Richard Nixon’s unease with John F. Kennedy’s charm.

“Likeability is the number one reason people win an election,” she said. “People vote for the candidate they like and feel comfortable with.”

Marcia Passos Duffy is a free-lance writer based in New England who writes frequently on business, investment and farming issues. She is a 1997 recipient of a New England Press Association award.

Contact:
Janet Larsen Palmer, Ph.D., President, Communication Excellence Institute, Los Angeles, Calif., 800-410-4234.

Background:
Susan Rogers, Center for Media Literacy, Los Angeles, Calif., 800- 226-9494 Web site: www.medialit.org

The center is a national resource and advocacy organization promoting the use of critical thinking skills in reviewing political and commercial media messages.

Joanna Brody: Schnack ~ Brody Communications, Inc. Phone: (310) 582-0085, Fax: (310) 582-0086, www.schnackandbrody.com