Computer Writing and Research Lab | University of Texas at Austin

Rhetoric and the Campaign

Submitted by gavinbenke on February 25, 2008 - 9:12pm

Watching the Democratic debate last week made me think this primary has been a potential goldmine for rhetoric instructors.

Throughout the debate, Clinton argued that "actions speak louder than words," while Obama insisted that "words matter."

Beyond this, Clinton's big attack was over plagiarism:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/21/videos.21feb.debate/

Here's a link to an article that looks at language and the Democratic primary a bit more:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/25/foreman.raw.politics/index.html

I'm planning on starting my class tomorrow with a discussion of language in the debates, but would also love to know if anyone else has found useful ways to incorporate the primaries into their rhetoric class.

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I heard Bill O'Reilly (I'll

Submitted by krdorsey on February 26, 2008 - 11:21am.

I heard Bill O'Reilly (I'll listen to anything on the radio. This isn't an endorsement.) talking about HRC's discussion of plagiarism as a political "misstep." The problem, according to Mr. O'Reilly, is that "no one cares about plagiarism." Teaching writing has led me to the same general conclusion.

(By the way--I do find the whole discussion of plagiarism sort of strange--as I find the excitement about Obama's speechifying [Ok, I get that he delivers well, but . . . ]--given the fact that politicians use speech writers. Who is committing the plagiarism anyway? Or am I missing something?)

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