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March 19, 2008

Checkers II?

Richard Nixon delivered one of the most extraordinary speeches in American history on 23 September 1952. It has become known as the Checkers speech--after the maudlin moment in which he evokes the name of the family dog. Nixon was accused in the press of benefiting personally from a secret campaign slush fund. To save his place on the Republican ticket, Nixon made the extraordinary move of taking his case to the people through a televised speech.

Yesterday Barack Obama took his case to the American people, this time defending himself against guilt by association. But was this speech (merely) a campaign tactic?

To use television as Nixon did in 1952 was something of a masterstroke. The emotional medium allowed him to make two kinds of cases: 1) propositional answers (logos) to the charges and 2) emotional and ethical appeals (pathos and ethos) regarding himself and his family. The popular name of the speech tells you which of these won the day--pathos.

Was this Obama's masterstroke? He can't re-break Nixon's ground. But, agree with him or not, what he did was talk frankly about race in a speech that relies on a complex employment of ethos. The ancient Greek rhetoricians identified two types of ethical appeal. Invented ethos is an appear that emerges in the text. Situated ethos is an appeal to whom the person is before the text.

We know television is an emotional medium in which skillful employment of pathos can be profoundly persuasive. Will Obama's moment show us that a speech heavy in the ethical appeal will/can be as persuasive?

The Blogora also took note of Obama's ethical appeal:

This one exudes so much ethos that the other pisteis are shakin' in their phronetic boots--and the hermeneuts of suspicion (may they rest in peace) are knockin' on heaven's door.

Clint Hendler, at CJR Daily, wonders if we can turn this moment from just another turn in the campaign horse race to something more substantial:

Let’s meet him where’s he’s led us. There’s no reason Clinton and McCain can’t join in, but again, this needn’t—and in some ways shouldn’t—be a campaign-focused conversation. It’s a long overdue national conversation.

If we can make this a national conversation that spills out of the confines of the campaign, then Obama will have his masterstroke no matter what happens in the Democratic nomination campaign and beyond.



Posted by acline at March 19, 2008 11:23 AM | | Spotlight