Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Speeches Point to an Ugly Campaign Season

PHILADELPHIA -- New York's late Gov. Mario Cuomo used to say, "We campaign in poetry, we govern in prose." That line's been quoted quite a bit these days. We like to talk about things we miss -- and poetry in politics is one of them.

It comes to mind in assessing Hillary Clinton's acceptance speech Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The speech sounded less like poetry than a rerun of Comedy Central's 2011 "Roast of Donald Trump." That's partly because the former secretary of state tends to speak in something of a monotone, although she seemed on this occasion to have trained herself to show a bit more emotion when the material called for it.

Donald Trump, by contrast, exhibited too much emotion during his speech a week earlier at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, turning even prosaic domestic and foreign concerns into a doomsday scenario. Gone was the sunny optimism of Ronald Reagan. It was replaced by Trump's strongly delivered apocalyptic vision, which essentially said, "The world is going down a sinkhole and only I, Donald Trump, can roll back the clock and save you from it."

Trump can get away with this vision because his core supporters feel that way too. "I am your voice," Trump declared, and I do not expect to see a rising-up by his supporters to challenge that view.

I wish that were not true. And so do a vast number of establishment Republicans who were hoping to extend their outreach to a more diverse electorate, such as African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and other minorities.

Instead, Trump has built his numbers by following an alternative theory: Continue to campaign to the same conservative base that carried him to nomination and see if more of them can be found to carry him to the White House. For Trump's divided party, Clinton is as much of a unifying agent as Trump is for the Democrats.

Trump's political vocabulary is basically binary: You're either "terrific" or a "disaster" in his eyes, with absolutely no room for nuance.

Clinton's political vocabulary, by contrast, is dense and multilayered, just like her knowledge of various issues. Whether you happen to agree with her positions or not, she has undeniable expertise and experience, which in a screwy election year like this one has suddenly become -- in many eyes -- a political liability.

In various ways, Clinton's speech reflected these realities and more. We heard about her life narrative in an effort to humanize her. Everybody loves stories, and those stories shape the ways that we perceive others. Poignant tales from her somewhat troubled childhood, her 1960s Ivy League romance with Bill and her life of work in social causes and political offices were contrasted with the billionaire Trump's flamboyant image. It's a sharp contrast, especially when Clinton's story is stripped of all those nasty controversies that she and her husband have endured in recent decades.

This is how you lose memorable lines from nomination acceptance speeches. Everybody can't be a William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic populist member of Congress from Nebraska, who gave us the immortal, "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

Instead, the sound of Clinton and Trump throwing barbs at each other sounds to the politically seasoned ear like a starter pistol in a long road race -- which in a poetic sense, is what a campaign is.

After a week of hearing Republicans tear her down, Hillary Clinton was ready to go after Trump's record. This was tantalizing for those who would enjoy nothing more than to watch the humbling of Donald Trump by American democracy in November. But it remains to be seen how much it will help her attract the working-class and lower-middle-class white male voters who now populate most of Trump's political base.

The same can be said, of course, for Trump's vision of attracting disenchanted supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders -- a vision that I find delusional.

One thing appears certain: Both candidates' acceptance speeches tell us that we can expect a very nasty campaign season. The disapproval ratings of both Clinton and Trump run above 50 percent, a record high in the age of polling. They also have life stories that offer a wealth of material for attack ads, which in the end is what has killed the poetry in politics. Poetry doesn't pay nearly as well as attack ads do.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)