In his keynote address at the Gnomedex tech conference in Seattle on Friday, US senator and highly-seasoned politician John Edwards had this to say about politicans’ polish in an age of informality:
[...] “The problem is that we’re so trained and so conditioned over a long period of time that being normal and real and authentic requires you to shed that conditioning,” Edwards said of politicians. “It is not an easy thing to do.” Edwards then alluded to the next presidential election. “My own view is the next president of the United States, or certainly the one after, is likely to be the single candidate who doesn’t sound like a politician,” he said. “I want to tell you on a personal level, I’m trying every way I know how not to do it. We’ve been trained to do the wrong thing,” he concluded. “That’s the problem.”
A refreshing admission, which I take on its face value. It’s one I bet many influential politcians over here would also agree with even if they’re not willing to say so publicly.
I think there are two senior European politicans who might be close to “not sounding like a politician” - EC Commissioner Margot Wallstrom and UK Secretary of State for the Environment David Miliband.
Coincidentally, both write blogs.
