Although presidential campaigns have always used technology to interact with the American electorate, recent developments in new media have raised the level of that interaction to an intensity and significance never seen before. In the 2008 Presidential Election, three major candidates struggled with these new media developments, but only one candidate—Barack Obama—tapped the full potential of new media to create a more dialogic and intimate experience with the electorate. This dissertation offers a rhetorical analysis of the campaign blogs used by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain in 2008 to discover the rhetorical tools each candidate used to create dialogical interaction with readers during the election. This study concludes that Clinton and McCain fail to realize the full potential of new media, but Obama creates successful dialogical interaction by using a variety of rhetorical figures of speech that engender independent action among his supporters. As a result of his successful use of new media, Obama stood in a different relationship with the reader of his blogs than the other candidates. This study uses the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin and his concept of polyphony to explain the full significance of this new relationship and to suggest how key rhetorical figures of speech can foster independent action and support. As a result of this study, future candidates may be able to use new media more effectively in political communication.

This Friday my panel and I missed the Federation Rhetoric Symposium hosted by  Texas Woman’s University’s English Speech & Foreign Languages. Each year  either Texas A&M Commerce or Texas Woman’s University hosts the event. This year’s speaker was going to be Patricia Bizzell. But, unfortunately, my friends and I live too far to have chanced driving in such a snowy and icy mess, especially when my BFF, colleague, and  fellow presenter, Carie Lambert’s hill was a sheet of ice in McKinney. Denton is further north of McKinney so we decided the roads were not safe. In fact, one of my panelists had a tree fall on her car. In any event, we missed meeting Dr. Bizzell.

I have learned a lot because of Dr. Bizzell. Her book, The Rhetorical Tradition that she co-authored with Bruce Herzberg was used in my first History of Rhetoric class. I was hoping for a signed book because that book helped me understand the origins and practice of rhetoric. So, thank you Dr. Bizzell. I was hoping for a picture of you and I to put with Dr. Thomas Sloan in my office. I’m in the beginning of making a hall of fame wall. So far, I’m failing.

My colleagues and I prepared a roundtable discussion over Rhetoric and Technology. My part was going to be about politics online with an emphasis on the 2008 Presidential Campaign. Here are the points I was going to go over that I discovered in my dissertation.

• •Elections are important because they allow us freedom to actively participate in selecting our leaders. They are the core of democracy. Nowhere in the world are more people more freely engaged in active, responsible participation in the choice of leadership than in the United States (Trent and Friedenberg 3).
• •Ethos: –Candidates’ used exemplum-example
  –Obama found his weakness—his lack of experience—and countered that information by posting endorsements to show voters those credible politicians and organizations support him as president.
• •Pathos:
  –Of the three presidential candidates, Obama best succeeded in creating emotional connections with his audience. Obama created a dialogical interaction. Obama urged readers to make phone calls, attend events, and to donate money.
  –Clinton and McCain failed to create emotional connections with their blog readers. –Used Visuals
• •Logos:
  –Blogs allow for candidates to recap and summarize days events.
  –Posted times for events
  –Blogs allowed candidates to refute claims made during the Presidential debates.

In conclusion:

• •The 2008 Presidential Campaign set the standard for future online campaigns.
• •Obama took advantage of the immediacy that the Internet provides to create a venue for an online audience who relies heavily on receiving information via the Internet.
• •Clinton did not provide enough posts throughout the day. She hid her endorsements and did not highlight her volunteers. She also was not aggressive enough in dispelling Obama’s accusations.
• •McCain’s blog failed to update, emote, and build his credibility.

Of course I was going to be witty and funny while presenting… but as always, the best laid plans are never that well planned.

Between teaching and writing the dissertation, the blog has been put on the back burner.  I left off with the campaign.  Let me update you on what I’ve been finding in the campaign blogs themselves.

It’s all about dialogic interaction.  Obama brings people into the conversation.  Hillary and McCain did not do as good as a job rhetorically.  The campaign blogs are very interesting to analyze.  Obama did not revolutionize the campaign no more so than JFK did.  What Obama did was create a better rhetorical situation by using a not so new technological device.

How Obama’s Internet Campaign Changed Politics

One of the many ways that the election of Barack Obama as president has echoed that of John F. Kennedy is his use of a new medium that will forever change politics. For Mr. Kennedy, it was television. For Mr. Obama, it is the Internet.

“Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,” said Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post.

Interesting article about how Obama writes his speeches:

How Obama Writes His Speeches

The toughest aspect of writing a speech isn’t so much the rhetoric, it’s the ideas—which take time to incubate and develop, says Andrei Cherny, editor of the journal Democracy and a former White House speechwriter under Clinton. “The hardest part about writing a speech like this is not the mechanics of it but what you want to say and how you’re going to say it, the strategy of it,” Cherny says. For a speech of this magnitude it’s not uncommon for politicians and their staffs to work on language for months, going into double-digit drafts, according to Cherny.

Is it me, or is the visual rhetoric that Obama wants to portray is AGE?  He says he’s graying rapidly, I really don’t think your hair can go gray in a matter of one week!!!  Hmmmm….

I just read this article from Newsweek about if it matters if John McCain is computer literate. Andrew Romano made a good point when he said most of us are computer savvy because we work with computers in the workplace, but when you’re a Senator or even President, Internet surfing is left up to staffers and legislative assistants. In fact, a computer is not even in the Oval Office for security purposes. It’s not that one does not want to learn, it’s all about the necessity to use the computer for daily activities… here’s what Romano had to say:

McCain Can’t Use ‘a Google.’ So What?

The only problem? This line of reasoning is misleading. For one thing, McCain’s computer illiteracy doesn’t reflect a lack of curiosity–it reflects a lack of necessity. Over the past 10 years, most adult Americans have encountered and explored computers primarily in the workplace, where the ability to communicate and find information on the Internet has gradually become a required skill. But McCain’s job in the U.S. Senate–where all communication and information has to be filtered through staffers–has actually made fluency more difficult to achieve (or at least less necessary). When aides are responding to your messages and briefing you on every imaginable subject, the incentive to get online sort of disappears.

I know that I would not want the President of the United States to fall for any phishing scams nor get Spam for Al Qaeda. I would rather see the President work less on his MySpace page and work harder at bringing down gas prices,bringing a peaceful end to the War in Iraq, and finding a cure for cancer.

After studying Obama’s blog in March, my conclusion is that Obama concentrates more on Credibility through Similarity, Goodwill and Idealism. It’s not about Power at all. Obama’s ethos is about his ability to connect to voters.

John McCain and Hillary analysis is up next. Stay tuned.