Texas & Ohio Primaries Speeches: Give me your tired, your poor...

Looks like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Mike Huckabee all pulled out the same rhetorical strategy during last night's Texas and Ohio primaries speeches. The cast of characters called in to appeal to our emotions included:

• a sleepy student getting only 3 hrs of sleep
• a mother with mortgage woes
• an elderly woman making a $3.01 campaign donation
• a single mother worried about health care
• a little girl wondering about homelessness
• a marine corps guy waiting for medical care
• a Michigan truck driver
• a housewife auctioning off her wedding ring
• a janitor with a wife in a wheelchair

Also seems like the candidates agreed on invoking 3 characters each. I've edited their speeches into a little YouTube video:

Hillary gets standing ovation for hardship remark similar to one Bill Clinton made in his campaign

I hope you all had a chance to watch the Clinton-Obama debate here in Austin tonight. If you did, you will have noticed that Hillary received a standing ovation towards the end of the debate when she admitted she had overcome a lot in life, but that her trials and tribulations paled in comparison to what everyday Americans go through. It was both a powerful and emotional response as some analysts have noted and it may very well have been the strongest moment of the debate.

What is interesting is that her response strongly reminded me of a similar comment made by her husband Bill Clinton, when he was running for president in the early 90s. This short clip is taken from "The Man from Hope", a film featuring Bill Clinton, which was made for the 1992 Democratic National Convention (the quote in question occurs at around 7 minutes into the film). Note how Bill basically invokes the same emotional appeal in his speech:

Hillary's exact words from the CNN debate transcript: "You know, the hits I've taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country."

Sample Analysis of a Speech Excerpt - Obama's Concession Speech

I just noticed an excellent example of what I would like you all to do for the blog contribution assignment on one of my favorite presentational speaking blogs - The Presentation Zen.

The post analyzes Obama's concession speech after the results of the New Hampshire primaries had come in. Notice how it takes one rhetorical element - repetition (one of the course concepts we will cover this semester) - and examines an entire speech segment in light of that element. That's exactly what I would like to see you do with your blog contributions:

1. Keep your eyes open for interesting speeches to analyze
2. Pick a new course concept and examine the speech in light of that concept
3. Embed the video, or link to it in your blog post/analysis

To read the post, click here.