Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 10, 1995                   TAG: 9504110032
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

POLITCALLY SPEAKING, I'VE GOT THE STUFF

I must say, despite my deep feelings about this, that I can use an extra buck or two and I've known enough politicians in my life to be able to write great speeches.

Listen, pal. I can do the let-us-go-forward-from-this-place speech standing on my head; not to mention the I-stand-before-you-a-humble-man-of-the-people version.

I got in on this thing late, but I would like now to audition for speech writer for the mayors of the great cities in this nation:

``Good evening, my fellow citizens. I am here tonight to tell you that this city can be great again - not that it isn't already great, you understand.'' (The speaker may pronounce ``great'' as ``gret'' if he is looking for the down-home approach.)

``There are laggards and naysayers who have persisted since the time of the Greek city-states and the contemporary versions of these prophets of doom would have you believe that the golden age of our city has passed.

``I say to you that instead of being in harm's way we stand at the very gates of glory. Men and women may cry that the day of the broad-shouldered city is over and that it will never rise again. They are wrong and they will not daunt us with their prophecies.

``We will accept with gratitude any money the federal goverment invests in our vision. But let the word go forth that we will never grovel. We are embarked on a great crusade of individual and collective fervor that will never know the anguish of failure or the acrid smell of dreams gone awry.

``We are a selfless band of brothers and sisters. We have seen the future and it is ours.

"I will not ask you to follow me down a primrose path of dubious promises and misapprehensions. I ask only that you follow me to the gates of municipal greatness (gretness) and enter them to embrace the destiny that will be ours if we will only screw our courage up to the sticking point.

``Let us go forward from this place, then, knowing that ours is a sacred quest and that an understanding heaven can only smile on our efforts. Let us, my friends, seek our just fates among the stars. Let us now aspire to greatness (gretness).''

Somebody in the audience is going to ask, "What'd he say?" And that's when you know you just wrote a great political speech.