Blog Post #2: Presidential Rhetoric

For this I chose the "Remarks by the President on the American Jobs Act" speech that was delivered on September 9th. This speech was a very pathos driven argument. Almost everything he said was an attempt to pull emotion out of the audience to try to achieve his goals (passing the bill). He talks about the children that are learning in sub-par environments and the bridges on I-95 that need to be fixed for the safety of the public. Instantly with the mention of kids, he will have supporters on his side. People love stories where kids are being helped; it makes them feel good about themselves. President Barack Obama is using a surprisingly simplistic style of speaking which is a smart ploy, because it probably makes the people feel like he is on their level. Were he to use a grand style of speech he would be speaking using rather large words and I feel that some of the audience might feel that he was being "holier than thou." Now, I don't know this for sure, but it's just a thought. In this speech he used one VERY noticeable figure of diction, repetition. A little over a quarter of the way through the speech, he starts repeating "pass this jobs bill and..." This use of repetition makes it very clear to see what it is that he is trying to convince the audience to do. I think this speech was effective for two reasons. One, people's emotions are easily manipulated and pathos has always been an effective manner of getting the right outcome. Two, through use of repetition, it was very clear what it was that Obama was trying to accomplish.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/09/remarks-president-american-jobs-act