Obama switches off his teleprompter
President Obama is weaning himself off his teleprompter.
At recent campaign events in Pennsylvania, Virginia and
again Monday in Ohio, Obama spoke to crowds in high school gymnasiums and at
crowded outdoor events without his teleprompter, instead using written notes.
The difference is dramatic. Instead of turning in his
characteristic manner from right to left and back again, reading from the two
sloping, clear-plastic planes of his teleprompter, Obama has glanced down at
pages in a binder on his podium.
Team Obama thinks the switch, or partial switch — the president
is not giving up the teleprompter entirely — will help him better connect with
voters.
Critics have mocked Obama’s routine use of the
teleprompter, including in speeches to schoolchildren. And the new use of
written notes appears intended to trade away the smooth, distant demeanor of
teleprompter rhetoric for a little more immediacy and vigor. A senior
administration official acknowledged the shift in the president’s style, saying
Obama is speaking “more extemporaneously.”
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