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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 232

Part of Session 196: Discourse, Politics and Women as Global Leaders (Other abstracts in this session)

When public speaking becomes dialogic: Hillary Rodham Clinton’s rhetorical management of the “Iron my shirt!” heckler in the 2008 Presidential election campaign.

Authors: Sheldon, Amy
Submitted by: Sheldon, Amy (University of Minnesota, United States of America)

     In the traditional study of public speaking the text is the primary object of analysis.  In election campaigns, it is difficult for voters to know a candidate by listening to a rehearsed script composed by a hired writer.  Few impromptu moments arise that more fully reveal the candidate.   

     Town hall meetings in a U.S. presidential election campaign are an opportunity to measure a candidate, and the national media often cover them. Although these question and answer sessions seem spontaneous, much of what a candidate says repeats their stump speeches.

     However, occasionally, a heckler shouts out, intending to embarrass the candidate and send them off guard and off message. The candidate is thrown into an unexpected multiparty speech event in which they have to respond. Inevitably the event will reach a wider audience via the news and online posting. How the candidate manages the intrusion can be as important as a speech.

     What can we learn when a candidate is forced into such a situation?   I will argue that the study of impromptu exchanges between a heckler and the principal speaker meaningfully expands the study of public speaking beyond its planned, text-centric purview.  Studying informal, “cozy” town hall meetings puts a focus on public speaking as an interactional speech event in which a co-present audience can play an important, and sometimes complex, interactional role.

     I will analyze the interaction in a meeting from the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign in which a man raucously and insistently interrupts Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) before she has had the chance to invite the audience to ask questions. The heckler sat in a front row and held up a sign that could be easily read by the audience behind him. He shouted repeatedly, “Iron my shirt!”, “Iron my shirt!”, and pumped the sign with its large letters up and down, in case shouting wasn’t enough.

     I will use the video record to describe the dialogic elements of this moment, including HRC’s impromptu, embodied rhetorical response that thwarts the heckler and repositions him onto the margin.  She maintains her audience rapport, sidesteps the trap of the “double-bind”, and ironically refashions the heckler’s words to her advantage. She uses the heckler to re-articulate her core feminist message, with aplomb, emotional equilibrium, and lively humor. Audience admiration and participation was fortuitously captured on camera. All is accomplished in 100 seconds.

     A brief comparison of HRC’s response with some male politicians’ responses to hecklers, including that of Bill Clinton, suggests the fruitfulness of comparing heckling directed at female and male public speakers. 

     In conclusion, studying public speakers while they negotiate a complex, unexpected multi-party event such as heckling can be revealing in ways that cannot be accomplished within the textual limitations and performance constraints of their speech-making.