Stump speech (politics) Stump speech (politics) A political stump speech is a standard speech used by a politician running for office. Typically a candidate who schedules many appearances prepares a short standardized stump speech that is repeated verbatim to each audience, before opening to questions. The term derives from the early American custom in which candidates campaigned from town to town and stood upon a sawed off tree stump to deliver their speech. In presidential campaigns in the United States, a candidate's speech at his or her party's presidential nominating convention usually forms the basis for the stump speech for the duration of
A More Perfect Union (speech) admission of surprise. Summarizing the media response to the speech, "The Washington Post" media critic Howard Kurtz wrote, After Obama had secured the Democratic nomination, journalists continued to refer to this speech when analyzing the role of race and racial attitudes in the presidential contest. A "Newsweek" summary of Obama's campaign called the speech a "tour de force, the sort of speech that only Barack Obama could give", but added that "a close reading of the speech suggests more than a hint of personal grandiosity." Political scientists and other academics also offered initial evaluations of the speech. While generally agreeing