Ok so I was watching The West Wing repeat,
Freedonia, on More 4 last night and Amy Gardner was preparing Santos for debate and telling him he was lacking the Presidential voice.
In light of our four candidates’ performances on Saturday morning do any of them have a Prime Ministerial voice. The real test will undoubtedly be on the doorsteps in 3-4 years when our Parliamentary candidates, hopefully including myself, are standing on people’s doorsteps asking them to vote Liberal Democrat.
So what do the grass root activists and the general public expect in a Prime Ministerial voice? Surely it goes a lot further than merely the voice. The voice needs to demand authority, trust and respect, but at the same time this has to be backed up with actions. So it is not so much a Prime Ministerial voice but a whole persona we are looking for. Each of the four candidates has something of the Prime Minister about them, after all you don’t get elected to Parliament especially in a seat which the party did not hold if they didn’t. This applies to most of the candidates as only Chris Huhne has succeeded in a held Lib Dem seat.
So maybe we should all be looking three years down the line when we are once again out almost every night on doorsteps talking to the non-Liberal democrats we meet. Imagine you are trying to convince them that we are the real alternative, that we are going to form the next government. Who do you want to be heading up that message?
Of course as Josh Lyman later reminded us you have to be elected President (Prime Minster) to be able to use the Presidential (Prime Ministerial) voice. So lets go out then and look at ensuring we have a Lib Dem who will use the Prime Ministerial voice, persona and wear it well.
