Obama before the Congress: 71 Minutes too long

by Clifford F. Thies

One of the craziest things about communism was being forced to listen to very, very long speeches. Fidel Castro was famous for haranguing his country with very long speeches. According to the Guinness Book of Records, he holds the records for the longest speech and for the longest uninterrupted speech to a captive audience, 32 hours and 21 minutes, and 7 hours and 10 minutes. One of the speeches of Joseph Stalin was released on vinyl records, a set of eight of them, with the flip side of the eighth being one long, standing ovation. Today, Hugo Chavez, the budding dictator of Venezuela, gives weekly speeches lasting as long as 6 hours, broadcast to the people of his country. So, why would anybody complain that Barack Obama took 71 minutes to deliver this year’s State of the Union address?

Speakers in democratic countries generally respect the time required of their audience to not only listen to their speech but also to consider critical analysis and contrary viewpoints. The difference between the length of the State of the Union address between recent Democratic Presidents, e.g., Obama and Bill Clinton, and recent Republicans, e.g., George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, is small, but is noticed. These two Democrats have tended to speak a bit longer, and to go beyond the apparent target length of one hour.

We now have a long history of Presidential addresses, including inaugural addresses, State of the Union addresses (which sometimes have been delivered orally and sometimes in written form), and Nomination Acceptance speeches. I have developed charts of the lengths of these addresses from the data of John Woolley and Gerhard Peters of the University of California at Santa Barbara with respect to the State of the Union addresses, and by using the word count function with respect to inaugural addresses and acceptance speeches.

With regard to the State of the Union addresses, it is clear that the written presentations have tended to be longer than the oral. It also appears that the length of the State of the Union address when it has been in written form, has been growing over time. Jimmy Carter’s last State of the Union address, which was in written form, is the longest.

With regard to the length of inaugural addresses, the longest is William Henry Harrison’s two-hour speech. While nobody knows how long that speech would have lasted if the man had not contracted pneumonia while making it, the lesson was learned that you should not make your speech too long when you are to deliver it outdoors during the winter. The shortest inaugural address was George Washington’s second. Not only in terms of word count, but also in terms of substance, he was just phoning it in. The third shortest, Abraham Lincoln’s second, is widely considered to have been the best. John F. Kennedy’s inaugural is widely considered to be one of the better ones, and it is on the short side.

Looking at acceptance speeches, Bill Clinton’s in 1996 was relatively long, but, William Howard Taft was not only our largest President, he was also the most verbose as far as acceptances speeches are concerned.

As to whether Democrats since Grover Cleveland tend to give longer speeches, I checked it out, and – statistically speaking – they don’t. The computer model I developed takes into account whether the address is in written or oral form, the tendency of each form to grow over time; the type of address, and whether an address is the first of that type given by a particular president or presidential candidate. The lengths of the speeches of Clinton and Obama are simply within the range of unpredictable variation.

Editor's Note - Dr. Thies is willing to forward the graphs as an attachment to anyone interested. If you'd like, send me an email request and I'll forward it along to him, ericdondero@yahoo.com.