Is This the Voice of Panic?
According to Political Wire, Hillary Clinton will give a speech shortly–before the polls close in Wisconsin. Here’s an excerpt:
Both Senator Obama and I would make history. But only one of us is ready on day one to be commander in chief, ready to manage our economy, and ready to defeat the Republicans. Only one of us has spent 35 years being a doer, a fighter and a champion for those who need a voice. That is what I would bring to the White House. That is the choice in this election… It’s about picking a president who relies not just on words–but on work, hard work, to get America back to work. Someone who’s not just in the speeches business–but will get America back in the solutions business.
I hate the “card” metaphor, but here goes anyway: The press has been playing the race and gender cards. Clinton is playing the experience card at time when it may not be what voters want to hear. And she’s playing the empty-rhetoric card. That might have worked in 1952 before television became a force in campaign politics. Now it just seems like panic.
Antithesis is the obvious scheme for such a message. But also note her naked use of the strawman fallacy, e.g. “relies not just on words” and ”not just in the speeches business.” Also note that the fallacy attacks the very thing that may draw voters to Obama. For example, read what an independent editorial editor says about listening to Obama:
I had seen some of Obama’s stump speeches. I remember when he burst upon the scene at the Democratic Convention a few years ago. I knew about “Yes I can.”
But this was different. I wasn’t listening as a journalist on Super Tuesday waiting to glean some sort of insight into what the election meant. I was just a guy watching three different candidates define themselves on national television. I was a citizen. A voter.
And I was watching a great orator become the voice of a new generation.
It was Martin Luther King Jr. sharing his dream. Neil Armstrong taking one giant leap for mankind. Ronald Reagan envisioning a shining city on a hill.
Never underestimate the power of eloquence in the television age. Neither should you assume that eloquence is simply the fluff of speech. The fluff has to hang on something or it will simply flutter away in the first breeze.
This item would not have drawn my interest if not for her delivering a speech 30 minutes before the polls close. That makes this an interesting study in kairos.
UPDATE: It’s not clear from CNN’s coverage when Clinton began her speech. But it appears to me that she started at some point after the polls closed in Wisconsin.
