The main difference that she points out between the rhetoric of a poet and that of a president is their audiences' expectations. She clearly states that the success behind figures such as George Bernard Shaw and Shakespeare is, largely, due their abilities to portray and take on different voices in their writings. It is what a literary audience expects. They wish to see themselves represented in what they read or see being performed, so it makes sense they would tend to gravitate towards stories and characters that act, talk and sound like them.
On the other hand, Smith says that "from our politicians, we still look for ideological heroism (...). We consider pragmatists to be weak. We call men of balance naive fools" (191). This means that our expectations from a politician, as electors or a similar positions, is that he or she have a single, unequivocal voice. Having a plurality of voices is considered a sign of weakness, not only of language, but also of ideals and values. And who wants that from the people who are supposed to be making important decisions in our behalf?
According to Smith though, multi-voiced individuals do have a place in politics (192). She says that it will be a long, hard process, that will end up in the dissociation between the politic and his multiple voices. This will give him or her the ability to see issues from multiple perspectives, and this capability will, according to her, produce positive results. She does not hesitate to say that the presence of more and more politicians to fit her description relies heavily in how Obama's administration turns out.
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