There are laws in the United States that prevent one candidate receiving more media time on a station than another candidate. That said, these rules do not seem to apply to college commencement ceremonies.
In any other year I would look at commencement speeches by Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama and former president Bill Clinton as ones that will actually mean something to graduates years later. However, it is not any other year. The year is 2008; there is a major race for the presidency in play and both of these speakers are inappropriate guests at a commencement ceremony that will likely be broadcast around the country. While I do not think these figures did or will mention the election in their actual speech, the fact that they are speaking did and will bring attention to the current election.
Last weekend, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama was the keynote speaker at Wesleyan University’s commencement ceremony. Senator Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., was originally scheduled to speak at the ceremony but was unable to as a result of a seizure he had a week earlier. Likewise, former president Bill Clinton will speak at our commencement ceremony. Obama’s speech last Sunday focused on our generation and the service we can do for our country. Furthermore, I expect Clinton’s speech in June will center around our generation and what we can do in the future to make the United States a better place.
To be sure, Obama has essentially wrapped up the Democratic nomination and has now focused his attention on the general election, one in which he will have to campaign hard against Sen. John McCain to win the presidency. And, while I admire Obama for all he has done and will even admit that his outlook on the future of this country has won me over, I do not think he should have spoken at Wesleyan. Furthermore, on a broader note, anyone running for office or involved in a campaign should not be invited to speak at a commencement ceremony.
Every day in a presidential election is a day that candidates must fight for media attention, and that aspect of the campaign is key. Two weeks ago Sen. Hillary Clinton won with a tremendous margin of victory in the Kentucky primary. However, the next day’s news was largely focused on former nominee Senator John Edwards’s endorsement of Obama rather than Clinton’s win.
How, then, does this tie into commencement speeches? Well, when a major national figure ““ such as Obama or Bill Clinton ““ delivers a commencement address, it is big news. Indeed, a major news topic in the Sunday news cycle this weekend was Obama’s speech at Wesleyan. That said, Obama had to do barely any work to gain this coverage. The Obama campaign did not have to make any calls to media outlets or arrange with Wesleyan if he could speak; all Obama had to do was show up at the right time with a well written speech and he essentially had a news cycle laid out for him.
Likewise, when Bill Clinton speaks here in June, he will have to do very little work to gain Hillary Clinton a news cycle for the day. Clinton will show up, read his speech, and the news cycle for that afternoon will involve his speech, Sen. Clinton’s campaign and the presidential campaign in general; all of that despite the fact that the former president probably will not even mention the campaign in his speech.
What does this all mean, though, in the long run? Essentially, because of the free media that candidates receive, they should not be recruited to speak at commencement ceremonies . And, just to be sure, I would think it inappropriate for Sen. McCain to speak at a commencement ceremony as well.
Commencements are the culmination of years of hard work and for many students, the final moment that they will have before they enter the real world and start working. Thus, while national figures like Sen. Obama or Bill Clinton may have strong and appropriate words for students going off into the real world, those facts are overshadowed by their current status as a candidate or surrogate in a national campaign.
Obama’s words at Wesleyan were strong and important ones, but it would be too easy for someone who opposed him to say that he was simply using a commencement ceremony to spread his campaign’s message. To be sure, I would normally look forward to hearing Bill Clinton speak at a college, but under the circumstances whatever he says will be shrouded in the current state of the election.
Thus, to retain the serious, non-political mood of commencement ceremonies, colleges should instead invite speakers that can also bring strong messages but leave out the baggage that comes with a heated election.
E-mail Margolis at mmargolis@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.