Many people commented on McCain’s condescension speech. While they considered it a great speech, very few had an understanding of the factors that make a speech successful or rather the factors that make a speech be referred to as a great speech. Most people do not understand what makes some speakers like Martin Luther and Barrack Obama stand out as great speakers of all time. This paper will therefore analyze the factors of rhetoric and persuasion in McCain’s concession speech and point out how the factors of speech making were put into interplay to enable its success.
One of the scholars that have had research in the field of speech is Sarah King. In her book Human Communication as a field of study, King points out that communication is a dynamic field that is practical and theoretic and which has a great influence on all aspects of human life. On his part, Burke (p. xiii) points out that what appears to be a common text or speech carries a lot of hidden meanings behind it that most listeners or readers fail to recognize.
A speech could contain several forms of imagery that are used as weapons for change and persuasion. To get the hidden meaning, one must have a clear understanding of how rhetoric motives are created without the recognition of the listeners or readers. The main aim of rhetoric motives is for persuasion on one part and identification on the other part. Basing on our text of analysis, we will identify rhetoric based on the latter; identification.
After a long period of the campaign between the Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his counterpart Barrack Obama of the democrats, the race eventually came to an end on Tuesday night of November 4th when Barrack Obama was elected president of the United States of America. It was during this night of the election that John McCain honorably accepted the outcome of the elections and therefore gave his concession speech in Phoenix, Arizona to the whole nation.
Description of the speech
In his speech, McCain recognizes the effort by Barrack Obama to restore the hope of the Americans during such a hard time both economically and socially. He points out that this was a difficult campaign but finally he has to acknowledge his defeat by honoring the choice of the Americans.
He also congratulates his former rival Barrack Obama for having persevered and endured the long and difficult journey without wavering until he finally came out as the person to which Americans entrusted their beloved country. He also acknowledges the historical nature of the victory. To him, this victory was not just for the democrats, but it marked a history for the African Americans as a whole because from the outcomes, the injustices that had been committed to them had been put aside. Americans had learnt to give due honor to whoever deserved the honor without considering his color or origin.
In his speech, McCain does not forget to mention the differences that had occurred during the campaign but this, according to him are things of the past and should be put aside so that both the republicans and the Democrats could embark on building the country that they love most, the United States of America. He stresses on the importance of working together as lovers of the beautiful country so as to maintain its status as a great nation. Finally, McCain acknowledges the people who had stood by his side during the long campaign period including his family and the family of Palin who had all persevered the long journey.
He also recognizes his campaign team and his close friends who had supported him through strategizing and financing all the events. Having not made it to the great seat, he acknowledges failure not to the republicans who had voted for him but to himself for having been unable to win the contest. He eventually sums up the speech by wising well his former opponent of whom he refers to as his president to be and calls for all the Americans not to major on the difficulties that they undergo but to ensure that they look forward to holding and sustaining America as a great nation.
Evaluation and analysis
One very important thing to note during a practice of speech evaluation and interpretation is the objective of the speaker. One should identify the motive of the speaker. It should be clear whether the speaker’s primary objective was to educate, entertain, motivate or persuade. By identifying this, the primary message will be clear to the person doing the analysis. Furthermore, identifying the objective of the speech helps to know whether the person giving the speech was the right person or some one else should have been used (six minutes, 2008).
In his speech, McCain was very clear with his objectives. One can easily identify that he was aimed at letting all Americans; both the Republicans and the Democrats to put aside their differences during the campaign and look forward to working together to build a strong America. This he starts by personally accepting the defeat and congratulating the winner then acknowledging the choice of the majority of Americans.
From the beginning to the end of the speech, he holds close top his objective without diverting far away. He does this by urging his supporters to join congratulating Obama and giving their next president good will. He also focuses on working together to build a strong America by urging Americans not to quit but to focus on the future because Americans never surrender. He emphasized this by reminding American that they make history but not hide from it. All these remarks were aimed at making sure that his primary objective of forgetting the campaign differences and working together for the betterment of the future of America for their grand children.
Identification of the audience and context of the speech is another factor that should be considered when making a speech analysis. This is very important because the way to address teenagers would greatly vary fro the way one would address elderly people. One must identify where and when the speech is being held. In addition to this, the key demographic characteristics of the audience must be considered. The size of the audience and whether the speech is meant for only the live audience or there are other external audiences getting the same speech on other media of communication like the radio, television or The Internet must be put into consideration (six minutes, 2008).
In his speech, the McCain is very clear with his audience. The audience is made up of Americans both in the Red States and the Blue States. With the main objective being to call on all the Americans to work together irrespective of their political orientations to build America, McCain stressed the importance of patriotism. This is because the audience was made up of two different groups of people who had two different feelings.
While the Republicans were mourning their defeat, the Democrats were celebrating victory. Unfortunately, these are people of the same country and who have to work together to ensure that the country goes past the economic hardships that were prevailing during the period so that they come up with strategies to build their country together. To attain this, he has to identify something that is common between the two.
This he identifies in patriotism. Consequently, most of his speech is marked by the use of the word ‘our Nation’ and ‘the country that we both love.’ These two phrases were used in many occasions and repeatedly to maintain his primary objective which was unity between the Republicans and the Democrats and also to trigger the feeling of patriotism which was the greatest unifying factor between the two contestants.
Culturally, Americans are known to be one of the most patriotic citizens towards their country. The name America is taken as a power word that would stimulate them to do anything to protect the sovereignty and pride of the country (Changing minds, 2009). This character is believed to be a strong weapon that could make them do the impossible just to save their country. McCain therefore uses this weapon to make the Americans forget about the differences in their political orientations and major on one thing that is common between them and a stronger force than politics and that is patriotism.
In addition, McCain understands that the audience would be marked by African Americans who would be out to celebrate the historic victory of one of their own in the highest office in the United States. Consequently, in his speech, he identifies this group of the audience by calling the event a historic event. He points out that Americans had moved from far where injustices prevailed over the citizenship of some legitimate Americans.
He refers to this as a phenomenon that would wound. In this part of the speech, he is trying to connect the audience with history. A history that was marked with injustice and inequality in terms of slavery where African Americans were not taken as equals to their white counterparts. To further strengthen the point of history, he reminds of the event where great controversy was drawn from critics just because President Roosevelt had welcomed Booker for diner.
The election of Barrack Obama as president thus shows that America had moved from such old and outdated practices where Americans worked together as Americans and not as white or African American or as Republicans and Democrats. This was also a way of cementing the theme of togetherness and patriotism and unity which is what McCain had taken as his primary objective.
Operative appeals
For any speech to make an impact to its audience, the operative appeals must be creatively used so as to appeal to the taste of the intended audience. Several scholars have tried to define the word rhetoric motives or rhetoric appeals.
According to the American Rhetoric, several definitions from several scholars have been highlighted. Among the definitions are Aristotle’s which defines them as, “the faculty of discovering in any particular case, all of the available means of persuasion” (Aristotle, p. 24). Other definitions include the art of using discourse to enchant the soul as offered by Plato, Cicero who purports that rhetoric is a speech that has been designed with the aim of persuading, Kenneth Burke’s definition that rhetoric is the use of words in attitude formation or the use of words for the course of belief manipulation. There are several other definitions offered by the American Rhetoric (2009).
According to Aristotle, there are three major forms of rhetoric appeals. The first appeal he identifies is Ethos, which he identifies as the “credibility of a person’s character.” (Reck & Scholar, p.93). The second form of rhetoric appeal is pathos which is the controlling of emotions by the speaker or writer and finally logos which refers to the truthfulness of the speech content under reasonable argument. Using of these three forms of appeals can result into great results which would translate into attitude formation towards the speaker, the listener or the society (Benson, p. xii).
Basing on the definitions and examples offered above of the operative appeals, it is now possible to try and highlight them in the speech offered by John McCain during the election night. As identified earlier, the main objective of the speech was ensuring that Americans worked together despite their political orientation to ensure that they continued to uphold the integrity of their country.
Ethos refers to the openly visible ethics of the speaker. This can be simplified as the image of the speaker to his audience. According to Aristotle, if the audience believes that the person speaking to them has moral character that is good and that what he speaks is of good will, then they are very much likely to believe what he says to them. In addition to this, the audience is bound to believe the speaker if he appears to have the required expertise and knowledge towards the topic being spoken (Aristotle).
This is very evident in the concession speech by McCain. Basing on the reaction of people, it is clear that they felt that McCain acted as a real patriot. The audience must have expected the loser to react in either negative or positive way. One way was by acknowledging the defeat and looking forward to reconstructing the broken America wile the other option was to refute the results and complain of rigging or blame the voters for giving the highest seat to the wrong person.
McCain chose the positive side of the bargain and thus worked reasonably towards creating a favorable image towards the audience. By congratulating his opponent and promising effort towards ensuring that the new president was able to reconstruct the country’s economy and also by humbling low enough to call him my president was a clear indication of positive image formation. In the speech McCain praised senator Obama for achieving a great victory for himself and America. This shows that the man had accepted defeat and also acknowledged the winner. He further says, “I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my opponent.” These statements were an indication that McCain was ready to work and submit under his former opponent. There is no better way of portraying a positive image as this.
In addition, he remembers to win the favor of the African Americans by demonizing the injustices and inequalities that were portrayed by history. He recognizes the wound caused by the phenomenon and even takes up [on his back the evil situation that occurred when President Roosevelt welcomed Booker T. Washington to dine with him. Finally, he calls upon all African Americans and all other minority ethnicities to be proud of being American citizens and that their being citizens of the greatest nation on earth be cherished without fear and regret.
The second form of appeal to the audience as pointed out by Aristotle is logos. This is the use of logical scientific judgments of the topic of discussion. This is a very effective weapon of audience appeal because the public highly values rationality and logic when in the process of decision making.
However this approach should be approached with caution because not all audiences can be approached scientifically due to their limited understanding of science but there are other forms of appeal within this form of audience appeal. In appealing to an audience, Aristotle purports that we can use a form of appeal called the rhetoric syllogism also referred to as an enthymeme. This form of persuasion involves giving suggestions to a possible cause of action just because something has to be done although the effectiveness of the cause is simply based on assumptions and probabilities.
The outcome of the cause is not truth but due to lack of any other option, the suggested cause of action offers the only solution (Aristotle). This was very evident in McCain’s concession speech offered in Arizona. After a long campaign trail where both the Republicans and the Democrats each had the hopes of emerging the winner, the truth was out. The Democrats had won. This left the Republicans in a state of limbo. They had no idea of which action to take. They would go for any offered option provided they were doing anything.
Faced with such a situation, the most logically, though not scientifically proved, cause of action was to urge the Republicans to join the Democrats in nation building. Whether this is possible or a mere theoretical action that would not be put into practice was not a thing to be proved by then. Due to the lack of other options and the inability to prove whether the action could stand or not, the audience was bound to believe in the cause of action offered by McCain.
Thirdly, Aristotle identifies Pathos as a form of audience persuasion and appeal. This is based on the manipulation of the emotions of the audience. While many people believe that their decision making is usually rational, Aristotle purports that the role of emotions in decision making cannot be sidelined. Many decisions are made under the influence of anger, fear, anxiety, love, hatred, etc. as Aristotle points out, to make an audience angry; one must understand what actually can trigger the feelings of anger in the audience. Once you understand what can trigger a given emotion, one should then give a solution to the form of emotion (Aristotle).
In his speech, McCain understands the feelings that his followers, the Republicans are harboring. He knows that they very much disappointed in fact we could say they are mad. In his speech he acknowledges this although he does not refer to it as being mad but he says that he knows that they are disappointed. He understands that the Republicans feel that they have failed and have been humiliated in the hands of their rivals, the Democrats.
As a result, he decides to take the blame off their shoulders by saying that what had happened was what the Americans had decided and that he wished the outcome was the other way round. In the effort to create an emotion, he says, “it is natural, tonight, to feel some disappointment.” By saying this, McCain triggers the feeling of failure or underachievement and humiliation that the Republicans are feeling. He reminds them of what they are feeling and thus piles the feelings just to remove them from their shoulders onto his shoulders by saying, “…we fought as hard as we could. And though we feel short, the failure is mine, not yours.” He provides a purging solution to the feeling of pain through recognizing their efforts. He names one after another acknowledges their support as family, friends and colleagues.
He also makes them feel better by saying that they deed their best. In fact, he doesn’t know what could have been done besides what they deed. As a remedy and medicine to their hopelessness and despair, McCain offers a solution. He brings it out as a closing remark.
He brings back the hope that was looking seemingly elusive to the Republicans. He says, “…not to despair in our present difficulties, but to believe, always, in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.” These were words of hope. Although they physically refer to Americans, they are meant for Republicans who feel down and hopeless. These are words designed to give them hope and make them know that they don’t have to surrender. They don’t have to quit either. They have to fight for the greatness of America by waiting for the next general elections where they would come up as victors.
McCain also uses repetition to drive the feeling of oneness within the Republicans and the Democrats. He tries to make them feel as brothers and sisters who have the obligation of developing their great nation. To achieve this, he dwells on the repeated glorification of America as a great nation. He also repeats words like “love” and “gratitude” as a way of showing his commitment to his party members. With these words, the republicans are bound to feel that their effort was not useless. They will no that their choice of president still valued them and also appreciated their voting him although he was not successful. To the Democrat audience, the message underscores the need to love and appreciate their former rivals and work hence work together as members of the great nation.
Conclusion
It is clear that the put on the measurement scale, the concession speech y McCain was a great success. Many live blogs showed people who were moved by the speech. Even democrats thought that the speech was good. One democrat was quoted saying that he shed tears when he heard the speech. In addition, he felt that should McCain have campaigned in the same manner, the defeat would not have been that large. The factors that played a role in the success of this speech were the clarity in the objective of the speech. He is clear of the need for working together of both the republicans and the Democrats in the achieving of the American dream.
He brings this out with a clear understanding of the audience and tries to offer either a consolation or congratulation to the deserving parties. Finally, he puts the rhetoric appeals outlined by Aristotle into play by touching on the emotions and the rationale of the audience. All these play a great role in ensuring that the speech is moving.
References:
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