The Republicans
It is very clear that the website for the Republican Party is all aboua t winning in the just concluded GOP elections. In the home page, there are two major graphic images that immediately caught the eye of the visitor. The first one is a GOP store sell,ing t-shirts that says I Fired Pelosi: Guess Who’s Next! It is of course about their overwhelming victory at the polls. The second is a link to the newly elected Republican leaders.
In the bottom-half of the homepage one can see the major subgroups of information that they want to relay to visitors and members of the party. The first sub-group is all about winning the elections and aptly titled Steps to Victory. The second and third sub-group is also related to the elections and focused on destroying the credibility of the Obama government while highlighting the achievements of the party.
The website was designed to be easily accessible to the younger generation of voters. It is evidenced by a link that will allow volunteers and members to create some sort of a virtual social network linking them together and empowering them to contribute more to the GOP elections. However, it must be pointed out that a significant portion of the site was devoted to the impact of women as leaders and as volunteers therefore it can be said that the Republicans targeted the youth and women.
The Republicans on the other hand made an appeal to logic by using research data taken from the Federal government. One article pointed to the failure of the Obama government to deal with financial reforms issues and that after almost two years in office the American people had yet to see genuine financial reforms.
This is the reason why their website is more convincing than those of their political rival. The Republicans pointed to this weakness to convince people why they should volunteer and donate money for the Republicans to win in the GOP elections.
The Democrats
The overriding message that one can get from their website is this: Change that Matters. As a result, the site can be seen as a mixed-bag of information not necessarily focused on the GOP elections. Nevertheless, it has to be pointed out that there is a clickable link on the topmost portion of the site that says: Elections. Interestingly a significant amount of information that can be accessed talks about the Obama government and there were many videos and articles where the core message is Obama’s victory in the past presidential elections.
One can also sense that the Democrats were on the defensive while the Republicans were on the offensive. For example the featured stories that took up space in the homepage talked about the significance of voting for Obama.
In one video a young woman said that her vote changed history. In another video the message was all about the impact of the 2008 presidential elections. It is clear that the main objective of the site is to preserve the gains of the presidential elections and not to focus on the GOP elections. It has to be pointed out also that their secondary goal is to focus on the middle-class families as well as the minorities.
The Democrats relied heavily on emotions as a major tool of persuasion. This can be seen in the videos where they featured young people talking about how they were able to change the course of history by voting for Obama. The appeal to emotions was also very much evident in another video featuring the Lozada family.
This technique is easy to understand, emotions are stirred not by hard and cold facts but by focusing on the individual or a family. There was no clear argument as to what they can do to institute financial reforms. This is the reason why their website is less convincing when it comes to asking for support in the GOP elections.
Blog in favor of Republicans
A blog entitled The Great Democrat Pre-Election Charade was written to warn voters that the Democrats will use fiscal responsibility rhetoric to entice them to vote for them (Adamo, p.1).
However, the blogger asserted that this is a desperate move by a desperate party trying to reverse the damage that they had done to the economy when their candidate President Obama was unable to make good on his promise of financial reforms. Adamo clarified that this has something to do with reneging on his campaign promise to destroy the evil lurking in Wall Street (Adamo, p.1).
This is a passionately written blog, but it will not convince those who are not already hard-core Republicans. First of all, the blogger did not use research data and another reliable source of information to support his arguments. Second, the blogger revealed his bias early on by using language that is not clear and can have double-meaning.
For instance, he said that the Obama government “confiscated and squandered” trillions of dollars of public funds. He seems to imply that Obama stole these funds, but he cannot prove this claim. Finally, the author presumed that Obama and his administration are working with Fidel Castro, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hugo Chavez.
The main purpose of this blog is to appeal to the emotions of the voters, especially those who are angry and frustrated because they lost their jobs or their houses to foreclosures. The counter-argument to Adamo’s claims is straightforward; he simply has to show evidence and not criticize the Obama government using baseless accusations alone.
Blog in favor of Democrats
The blog entitled Are Republicans Lying About Financial Reforms was written to anticipate campaign rhetoric that will be unleashed by the Republicans against the Democrats (Seltzer, p.1). It was indeed influenced by election fever and it aims to stem the tide with regards to the public backlash as a result of a sluggish economy.
This time around the author did not appeal to emotions alone but to logic. Seltzer did not hurl baseless accusations against any candidate instead he explained the rigors of financial reform and why voters should not believe what the Republicans are saying regarding the failure of the Obama presidency in particular and the Democratic Party in general when it comes to institutionalizing reforms.
Seltzer assured the voting public that the Obama administration is not doing something illegal or even something novel. He said that what is needed are sound principles and sound strategies that had been adopted in other countries and proven successful. He created a very persuasive argument when he cited that Canada has five of the largest banks in the world and yet it did not require a bailout from the Canadian government because they instituted these reforms (Seltzer, p.1).
He concluded by saying that if the U.S. government will copy the same successful strategy then there is no reason why it should fail, the only thing needed is for the voting public to continue to have faith with the Obama administration and therefore by association the Democratic party.
Seltzer can easily persuade his readers because he used information that is readily obtainable. It is easy to conduct background research on Canadian banks and afterwards the potential voter will know that he is telling the truth. However, the counter-argument to Seltzer’s proposition is also straightforward: Can the Obama administration duplicate the same feat and succeed in creating financial reforms in this country?
Works Cited
Adamo, Christopher. “The Great Democrat Pre-Election Charade.” 2010. Web.
Democrats. “Change that Matters.” 2010. Web.
Seltzer, Marc. “Are Republicans Lying About Financial Reforms?” Web.