Friends and former colleagues from the Upper Midwest have had grand fun in the last few weeks watching a Minnesota vibe infect national politics. Mountain Editor sends frequent links to stories about Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, who happens to be his second cousin. (No, they’ve never met, but their mothers corresponded. I have encouraged Mountain Editor to give Tim’s mom a congratulatory ring. He fears that might be presumptuous — but his family migrated west to Seattle when he was 6, so he never picked up the ethic of showing up just to say hey; no excuse necessary if you’re carrying a casserole, aka “hot dish” in most of Minnesota, or a plate of lemon bars.)
My friends and I riff on our shared nostalgia for such customs, lapsing into colloquialisms and speech patterns we have long since shed. (If you want a sampling, just go to “You Betcha!,” a newish Substack column by Pulitzer-winning editorial cartoonist Jack Ohman.) Beyond the goofs, though, I drew on the Democratic National Convention, and convention coverage, during a recent writing workshop in northern Wisconsin. The speeches, especially, provided fodder to examine narrative: How a speaker moves through the arc of a story; whether they build around a central theme or meander a bit too much; how they employ the ladder of abstraction, launching off an intimate anecdote to soaring, universal themes. It proved a great way to explore emphasis, pacing and the nebulous notion of “voice” in writing. (Professional tip to all writers out there: Read your work out loud.)
Consider this succinct analysis from a retired journalist’s Facebook post after Day 2 of the convention:
…forget the words for a few moments, and notice how much tone, pacing and emphasis (or lack thereof) matters. Doug Emhoff comes across as funny, a tiny bit goofy, extremely nice. Michelle Obama’s presentation, in contrast, was almost staccato, delivered with hyper articulation and strong, careful emphasis. A very powerful delivery, almost fierce at times. And Barack: he is eloquent, extremely graceful — look at those hands! — a natural speaker whose smooth delivery contained a lot of tiny pauses. His speech was almost a melody with a rhythm that to me suggests southern pacing.
Analogies and cultural allusions were on abundant display in a convention that hammered themes of diversity and inclusion. Walz, especially, went all in on regional authenticity, from videos of himself at the Minnesota State Fair to his flat-voweled accent to a full field of football references. He earned his right to the latter from his many years coaching high school football. But his pep-talk acceptance speech left a few New York Times columnists a bit befuddled. This from Michelle Goldberg: “Walz made me wish I understood football metaphors.”
We talked in the writing workshop about the power and risk of metaphor. Four of the five writers had no problem with Walz’s talk of fourth downs, blocking and tackling, gaining one yard at a time, leaving it all on the field, reaching the end zone. Two in the group were from the Midwest; one spent several years coaching high school baseball; and one was from Texas so, duh!, football. But a fifth wasn’t having it. She was the youngest among us, a self-described “city girl” from New York who emigrated there with her family when she was 5. Her cultural and ethnic background is Egyptian and Yemeni. She lived in Indiana briefly, but still expressed amazement at the large gatherings of cows she saw on the drive here from the Duluth airport. (I resisted telling her that multiple cows are a herd, not a gathering. Another time, maybe.) In her world, football is not the American version. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she actually understands the game of cricket.
It all made for a lot of two-way teasing and some strained explanations. Or, as another New York Times columnist said of the Walz speech: The most extended metaphor of the convention. That led to a more serious discussion of how, when and whether you trust your audience to understand your cultural references — and how sometimes you leave people out. Those East Coast ivy-league journalists, who have long misunderstood the nuances of middle America, now find themselves in a game of catch-up as Walz, in his way, and Kamala Harris, in hers, draw from their particular backgrounds and speech patterns.
I had no definitive guidance to give the writers about the effective use of analogy, allusion and metaphor. Questions about writing, I told them again and again, are usually answered with “It depends.” Kind of like life.
But I am quite sure that Walz’s rally speech was part of the playbook — not a last-minute audible.
