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.

Etymology

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.

U.S. campaigns

In presidential campaigns in the United States, a candidate's speech at his or her party's

presidential nominating convention A United States presidential nominating convention is a political convention held every four years in the United States by most of the political parties who will be fielding nominees in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. The formal purpo ...

usually forms the basis for the stump speech for the duration of the national campaign. Stump speeches are not meant to generate news, outside of local media covering a candidate's appearance. National media usually ignore their contents in their daily news coverage. The predictability of stump speeches gives reporters a general indication that the candidate will soon conclude his speech. An example of this comes from

New York Governor The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor ...

Nelson Rockefeller Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979), sometimes referred to by his nickname Rocky, was an American businessman and politician who served as the 41st vice president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. A member of t ...

, who would constantly use the phrase "the brotherhood of man, under the fatherhood of God" toward the end of his speeches during his multiple bids for the

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

presidential nomination. Reporters covering Rockefeller came to abbreviate the expression as .

References

External links

An example is provided by the Washington Post on a 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama speech, complete with time line, segmentation and videos. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2008/02/26/GR2008022600417.html. {{DEFAULTSORT:Stump Speech (Politics) Elections Public speaking