An Analysis of the Rhetorical Elements of Political Campaign Advertisements

It is very common among the United States’ political sphere to rely heavily on T.V. commercials during election season; this is after all the most effective way to spread a message to millions of voters in order to gain their support. The presidential election of 2008 was not the exception; candidates and interest groups spent 2.6 billion dollars on advertising that year from which 2 billion were used exclusively for broadcast television (Seelye 2008.) Although the effectiveness of these advertisements is relatively small compared to the money spent on them (Liasson 2012), it is important for American voters to think critically about the information and arguments presented by these ads. An analysis of the rhetoric in four of the political campaign commercials of the 2008 presidential election reveals the different informal fallacies utilized to gain support for one of the candidates or misguide the public about the opposing candidate.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama who belongs to the Democratic Party broadcasted the first commercial we will analyze, the title is “Seven” referring to the seven houses his opponent John McCain owns; Barack Obama tries to engage pathos which refers to the audience of the message (Ramage et Al. 2012) utilizing a form of fallacy known as “appeal to pity”, this fallacy tries to “appeal to the audience’s sympathetic feelings in order to support a claim that should be decided on more relevant or objective grounds” (Ramage et Al. 2012) and he does it by inflicting feelings of anger and injustice when he mentions that “maybe you are struggling just to pay the mortgage on your home”( BarackObamadotcom “Seven” 2008) but John McCain has so many houses that he could not remember how many he actually owned...

... middle of paper ...

...rongly influenced or misguided by them.

Works Cited

BarackObamadotcom. "James Taylor for Obama." YouTube. YouTube, 22 Oct. 2008. Web. 07 Mar. 2014.

BarackObamadotcom. ""Seven" - TV Ad." YouTube. YouTube, 21 Aug. 2008. Web. 07 Mar. 2014.

JohnMcCaindotcom. "Compare." YouTube. YouTube, 27 Oct. 2008. Web. 07 Mar. 2014.

JohnMcCaindotcom. "McCain Is Right." YouTube. YouTube, 26 Sept. 2008. Web. 07 Mar. 2014.

Liasson, Mara. "Do Political Ads Actually Work?" National Public Radio. NPR, 26 Oct. 2012. Web. 07 Mar. 2014.

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings. 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education, 2012. Print.

Seelye, Katherine Q. "About $2.6 Billion Spent on Political Ads in 2008." The Caucus About 26 Billion Spent on Political Ads in 2008 Comments. The New York Times Company, 2 Dec. 2008. Web. 07 Mar. 2014.