Hillary Clinton - 1/22/08 - Speaks in Arizona about Health Care

Hillary Speech Youtube Link

I think that Hilliary did an overall good job in the delivery and content of this speech.

First off, she immediately shows that she has analyzed her audience's economic status, because she is addressing the middle class, which is primarily what they are made up as. Next, she uses immediacy behavior, addressing the group as we, making herself part of the middle class :) (she continues this throughout the whole speech). When shes says that health care improvements are morally the right thing to do, at first I thought this was an exaggeration, but she defends this well and shows that this is actually true and shows the extent and urgency of this topic. Her next point that it is smart economically is true as well, but she does not do as good of a job defending it -- she just says that we spend more money than the rest of the world and we should be getting the most of it. She gets audience involvement, giving them a stimulus and motivating them to respond by asking them two rhetorical questions that kind of hit the spot for this audience -- getting them very pumped up. She also does a good job of targeting the problems with health care -- narrowing it down to two. After this, she makes sure to state that her solution will work for people who are happy with their current health care, before she goes into the solution itself. Towards the end she again tries to put the government and people on equal grounds when she says that she wants to give the people what every member of Congress has.

She has a good organization throughout the whole speech, and uses a problem/solution type of organization. First she says that there are problems with current health care. She narrows this down to two major problems: people cant afford it and people who have it don't get the health care they deserve. Next, she pretty much says she has a solution, but addresses the two major groups of people: those who are content with their current health care, and those who aren't, and says how her plan will work for both groups. Last she goes into more specifically what her plan will do.

Throughout the speech, her deliver is good. She makes good use of pauses. Her gestures are a little unnatural at the start (her arm is still out to the side), but they get better as it goes on. She is vocally expressive as well. An example would be when she raises her volume and rate in the middle when she says ...and that is wrong!

She knows what people want to hear, and she knows how to present it, so she did a good job on this speech.