Unfortunately I didn't have time to watch the debate last night, but I did read all about it from news articles. Though all aspects of presidency are important, it seems the question everyone wants answered is how our future president will fix (or at least get us through) the current economic crisis. McCain's approach is a 300 billion pledge to buy and renegotiate bad home loans to allow people to keep their houses. He provides America with ethos when he states that "it's my proposal, it's not Senator Obama's proposal, it's not President Bush's proposal and I know how to get America working again". Obama, on the other hand, tells us that he is going to "provide middle class tax cuts to 95% of working Americans". Both candidates seem to have a clear set plan to get us out of our perilous times, but the question now becomes who can convince us that they will go through with their plan, and which plan will succeed in its goal. According to CNN's poll of the undecided voters, Obama won the debate 59% to 37. However, I remembered the comment that was made in American Studies today, about how everyone who saw JFK during his presidential debate thought he won, while radio listeners were sure Nixon was the winner. This made me think back to making arguments, and how everything from whats visually presented to the evidence itself can profoundly affect something like a presidential debate. I guess its up to us to decide what arguments a real and what are cleverly covered by pathos and ethos.
1 comment:
Sweet post Lena. Nice job connecting Obama and McCain's arguments to pathos and ethos from Everything's an Argument. Its interesting how you didn't mention logos because to solve the economic crisis, radical, illogical changes have to be made. And I agree that Obama may not have won by so much if the debate hadn't been on TV. He looks a lot more relaxed and chill than McCain when he's talking. Peace.
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