Let’s take this campaign for president out of the gutter where John McCain has poured it. Elevate! Sublimate! Let’s look to the past! Far past. Ancient past. Aristotle. Ancient Greece. Aristotle gave the definition for what Obama and McCain are trying to do, practicing rhetoric, which is trying to find in the present political contest all the available means of persuasion that will effect a win at the upcoming election in November. Aristotle was associated for twenty years with the Academy of Plato from the age of eighteen. He became the tutor of Alexander (the Great).
He taught rhetoric, a pragmatic art having an educative influence in forming people for freedom. Rhetoric was, and still is the force opposed to the sophists and sophistry (simply, plausible but fallacious argumentation). Rhetoric is used in situations where opinion may differ. Three basic means in arguing are available to Obama and McCain: (1) the use of their “character” (ethos), to make their speaking credible.
We have McCain’s war-hero background, on which McCain relies heavily in his self-promotion and his special qualification to deal with the problems of the Iraq war and terrorism, and be commander-in-chief. I have concluded that McCain’s reliance on character strength is one of his two major modes of self-presentation. The second is (2) the arousal of emotion (pathos). The “My friends” of his direct address to audiences evokes a phatic affect which puts the audience in an excessively emotional frame of mind, “mushy”. McCain has been charactrized as a hot-head. His treatment of audiences is clear. He behaves as if they are mostly susceptible to emotional and character appeals. His presentations in speeches and negative ads are mostly self-praise, blame, and self-display.
(3) The third means of persuasion, logos, is Obama’s strong point, in contrast to John McCain. His remarkable deliberative oratory, his verbal art and reasoned discourse have occasioned a number of cutting remarks from his opponents. His presentation before a Jewish audience displayed his command of proofs, of the details of deliberation in the international affairs in the turmoil of Arab-Israeli relations. His deliberative mind managed many threads in the fabric of those complicated affairs.
Regarding his ethos, he cites mostly his vote against going to war In Iraq. Obama does not, himself, dwell on his educational and teaching background, but he emphasizes that his character developed from his background of poverty in childhood and his multicultural experiences. He is proud of his community organization work in South Chicago, as well as work in the Illinois and U.S. Senate.
But for emotion (pathos), in the face of McCain’s negative ads and speeches, Obama has been seen as dismissive, where I and others have felt the public should feel some expression of outrage. Perhaps he can be stern, but that’s a road half-way traveled. His emotions are under strong cortical control. Perhaps too much so. Emotion is one basic ingredient that gives oratory its eloquence, along with poetic style, in the service of a great proposition.
To me, it is a struggle between logic and affect. I saw them back-to-back the morning of July 23, 2008, on MSNBC, the “mushy” McCain in a town hall meeting, wandering aimlessly all over the stage and carrying his attacks with him all the way. On the other side was the incisive analysis of Obama in Israel.
What do the people of this nation want? Who are the people of this country who will take it all in and vote?
Those contrasting strategies in speaking to the public are falling upon three basic types of citizen. I call them the “reactive”, the “proactive”, and the “accidental” or “incidental” citizen. The accidental citizen will encounter the political message and pass by, the slogan in a radio ad, a snippet of the candidate’s voice, a glimpse of his form and figure in a tv news report, an overheard conversation on the topic, a throw-away piece of mail—in all, close encounters of the third kind, kaleidoscoping through his political fog to an incoherant view of what is going on in this world, pinning the elephant’s trunk on the donkey’s rump. It’s the know-nothing being laughed at on Jay Leno’s “jay walking” segment.
The reactive citizen will have knee-jerk responses to any emotional appeals to prejudice in the issues of patriotism, race, gender, age, conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat, elitist, hero, union, and so on. The candidate who says what he has assessed to be the view his audience wants to hear, who has done a good job of audience analysis, and eschews saying what he knows the audience needs to hear, is demagoging the issue. Emotion, not logic, reigns supreme.
The proactive citizen goes to school on the candidates and issues. Mass media exposure of a high order is characteristic of this citizen, who exemplifies the deliberative mind. How many citizens earn their credentials as a proactive citizen, and, therefore, a competent voter and astute discussant? Such a citizen innoculates him- or herself against media and candidate bias and most appeals to prejudice and negative affect in negative ads. This citizen has fortified him- or herself with a foundation of information and proofs supporting one or the other candidate. This person can pierce the idiocy of any bicker-bicker among media talking heads with an arrow of insight, going to the heart of the issue.
The pollsters should always accompany their polling on the horse race with a control set of questions qualifying the respondent as a proactive, reactive, or accidental voter. Those who quote poll results have never discussed such controls that qualify the results as accurate amd reliable.
My application of those principles leads me to favor the performance of Barack Obama, with my reservation that he has a deficit of pathos. I did not favor John Kerry’s tepid resonse to the “Swift-Boaters” in the last election for president. What would Obama look like in a show of rage against the negative ads against him? Rage plus a strong, well styled argument against McCain’s point? “Politics as usual” is a weak response. Obama must define himself, not let McCain do it for him.
I hope I have contributed a different way of looking at the candidates and their campaigns.
