Governor Perdue had the makings of a great speech last night. But she didn’t give it.

When she finished, it felt like the old song: Is that all there is?

I had predicted she would paint a broad picture rather than fill in details. But she certainly took that approach to the extreme.

The platitude quotient hit record highs. The obligatory recognition of special guests in the gallery – used because it’s a sure-fire applause line – needs to be retired. So does the phrase “eating our seed corn.”

And she keeps promising to make tough decisions. (Word is that her decision will be to tell agency heads to cut across the board.)

Her much-discussed delivery was fine. She clearly is working hard with her speech coach. She can seem nervous, and she does smile at inappropriate times, but she has come a long way since the campaign. She is certainly as good as your average governor around the country. (Witness Bobby Jindal.)

She has a hard time delivering applause lines. But the key is writing them – then letting your voice rise with them. As in: “Applause lines are good, the audience wants a good applause line, and a good applause line will signal the audience to stand up and cheer!”

Also known as the Rule of Three.

My real quarrel was with the structure of the speech. Because it could have been much, much better.

She should have built it around her two money shots:

• “And yes, even in these tough times, we will increase per-pupil spending in our public schools.”
  
• “We will bring some sanity to North Carolina‘s own testing mania by eliminating duplicative or unnecessary tests.”

Again, follow the Rule of Three. The speech needed three parts:

1. Outline the economic challenge. Here, she did a good job. She put a human face on the crisis.
   
2. Say that – while getting through a tough budget – North Carolina will strengthen education so that we will be ahead of the rest of the nation when economic growth resumes. She could have employed her standard South Carolina joke here, to make the point about staying ahead of the competition.
   
3. Flesh out the two education pledges – increasing per-pupil spending and bringing “sanity” to testing.

Apparently, she will increase per-pupil spending by using stimulus money. That’s fine. Just explain it. And remember that spending more money alone isn’t enough; people want to know how you’ll spend it and how you’ll change the schools.

For which she has a good answer: Bill Harrison.

And then she could have made her point about restoring sanity to testing, which would be popular with parents and teachers.

If she had made the education pledges the centerpiece of the speech – rather than throwaway lines – she would have thrown the Republicans a curveball.

Senator Phil Berger – who was also better than Bobby Jindal – served up the standard mantra: no tax increases.

But his pitch doesn’t match Perdue’s. She’s saying: We can improve education – without raising taxes and by cutting the budget.

That’s a good message in bad times.

The Governor did seize the political high ground. But she also could have stamped herself as a special leader. Her speech failed to seize that chance.

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