Being fortunate enough to not watch the debate until today, Thursday, I was able to hear various responses to the results of the debate via facebook, word of mouth, ect. From what I heard, it was a Romney domination, and from hearing that and then watching the debate, I think both candidates need to add more funding to education. I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but this debate made me want to side with Obama. Romney's refusal to name any specifics of his plans has become so frustrating that I can't quite find the words to describe it at the moment. I'm just going to jump into my rhetorical reflection with a little discussion about logos (or lack thereof).
Romney:
My favorite piece of wisdom that came out of Romney's mouth during this debate came in two different sentences that were some space apart. The first was "I like coal." The second: "I like green energy." Pick a side, buddy. Clean coal is a myth, in order to filter coal exhaust to the point of it being "clean" is not financially viable. Another dandy of his was: "You can't have a free-market without regulation." Anyone else see the paradox here? Things like these run so rampant through all of Romney's platform that I could barely stand it. An intelligent listener will pick up on these things and the rest of the speech will come across less convincing.
Obama:
While Obama's speech wasn't nearly as rife with logical inaccuracies as Romney's but to be fair, I will make my argument for this side as well. While there may have been more, the one I noticed from the Commander and Chief was in the sentence: "Let's hire more math and science teacher so we can maintain our technological lead." The key here is 'maintain.' The US is currently ranked number 17 in the world for scientific education, that doesn't sound anything like a lead to me.
An interesting point that I thought Obama made was humanizing himself with the comment about his anniversary at the very beginning. It has nothing to do with the election/debate yet it brings up, perhaps as a way to reach out and show that he is "like everyone else." I'm not sure what I would call that in rhetorical terms, but it seemed interesting.
Next is the topic of topics. As we have noted in class, and Obama noted, and the commentator of the debate noted: Romney's plans lack specifics. Every single one of them. I had never really seen this first hand until I watched the debate and it is ridiculous. Romney appeals to general topics, topics of happiness. He highlights things that would make the most people happy, and I agree that if he could do all the things he says he would like to do (generally) then a lot of people would be happy. Creating jobs, decreasing the deficit, reforming health care would make people happy, but Romney refuses to let anyone in on his plans and then become exceeding upset because everyone has his plans wrong. "Economists can't say that my tax cuts will cost 5 trillion dollars." You're right Mitt, but not because it's not true, but because absolutely no one knows what your plans are. Obama on the other hand starts out his first reply to Romney's statement with the words: "let me talk specifically about what we need to do." He then proceeds to walk through the steps of his plans (which I can't really name because I had lost a considerable amount of interest by the point they were talking specifics). Either way, the point of addressing specifics seems to be a very powerful move the Obama's platform, and will help him gain the trust of the audience.
The final point I would like to address is that both speakers make appeals to the Clinton administration. By attributing parts of their platforms to the Clinton administration, their party becomes more credible by resting on the success of president Clinton. Just interesting to not that both candidates make the appeal.
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