WRIT 450: Presidential Rhetoric Assignment, Delivery

While watching the first presidential debate of the 2012 election, I decided it would be interesting to visually analyze both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama while they debated. Clearly the subject matter is more important than the visual cues, in this case, but humans are extremely social beings and we rely a lot, especially in American culture, on the media and all the visual aspects associated. Plus, I’m sure both Obama and Romney have been extensively trained on public speaking, so analyzing their visual cues might lend a deeper insight on their political campaigns and future ideals.

I remember reading different psychology texts about James Borg, famed for his abilities to “read” people purely off the physical signals they unconsciously sent out while communicating, that concluded humans, while communicating, rely on physical cues at an astonishing 93% and verbal cues for the remaining 7% to understand what someone is saying or feeling. That ratio doesn’t change because of a television set, as long as viewers can see both Obama and Romney’s upper bodies while they talk, viewers will still rely mainly on physical cues to better understand each politician. They might watch for hand signals, eyebrow twitching, mouth movement, eye orientation, overall calmness or anxiety from body twitching, and the list goes on. All this to say, we never really think twice about any of these things, but they are vital components to our overall judgment of both of the politian’s character.

 “…delivery has great power, as has been said, because of the corruption of the audience…for to speak in one way rather than another does make some difference in regard to clarity, though not a great difference; but all these things are forms of outward show and intended to affect the audience…” (Aristotle on Rhetoric, 196).

This concept of delivery is really the focal point, in terms of rhetoric, that I’m aiming on both Obama and Romney. Obviously, the way in which a politian debates should not be the sole reasoning behind any vote, but in today’s society a sizeable fraction of American voters could be swayed by a convincing debate.

Mitt Romney from the start was the aggressor; from 9:40 to 12:37 (in the video below) Romney launches his opening attacks on Obama. Which is understandable, it’s a debate. What I found intriguing was that for the duration of Romney’s opening debate he focused on looking at Obama, and never really looked at the moderator or the camera until he was eventually cutoff. Almost as a father lectures their children after they’ve gotten in trouble.

  

Like a lion stalking its prey, Romney never breaks eye contact with Obama. Admittedly, it does help drive home Romney’s points, and to this extent it gives Romney a strong platform to build the rest of his arguments off of.  He comes off as driven, intelligent, and more important he works at showing Americans that he’s serious. In regards to Aristotle’s concept of delivery, this fits right into the idea of establishing ethos and appealing through pathos.  

Both Obama and Romney display how different kinds of hand gestures can help demonstrate different points. From about 0:20 till around 5:30 in the above video both Romney and Obama use a plethora of different hand gestures:

-0:44 – Romney points his finger while describing debt being passed down generations (interestingly he points right at Obama).

-0:56 – Romney uses three fingers to illustrate the different ways to cut a deficit, he follows that up with using quite a few different hand gestures to explain his theory. No matter what Romney was explaining, right or wrong, it would be hard to differ with him because his hand gestures are so convincing.

-3:54 – Obama discusses a deficit reduction plan and uses his hands to figuratively show a 4 trillion dollar sum of money, which makes the number a little more conceivable to viewers. Then he follows up with laying out his website that depicts his deficit reduction plan by making gestures that point out the simplicity of his site and its easy accessibility.

For the majority of the debate, Romney seemed to be more energetic with his hand gestures, which translated into more energetic ideas. I’m almost positive he planned on presenting himself as energetic, because Obama, who seemed more laid back, did not seem as lively when describing his ideas. This may not seem important, but if it sways just one voter than it was worth the politian’s effort.

Similar to the first video, Romney’s glare persists. The vast majority of Romney’s allotted time was spent looking right at Obama, as if the election had become personal to Romney, and Obama was his sworn enemy.   

Throughout the third video (above) while Obama uses his allotted time to speak, he chose to “speak” to the audience/moderator, he only glimpsed at Romney when he referred to him. Similar to the first two videos, when Romney spoke he focused on Obama. A growing trend became clear, whenever Romney spoke to Obama, Obama inevitably looked down at his podium. Examples in first video – 9:46, 15:16, 15:31, 23:21 second video – 6:03, 6:48, 11:33, 12:38 third -- 4:24, 6:25 forth – 6:20, 6:50, 10:45, 13:00 fifth – 1:37, 9:27. Compared to Romney, who barely ever looked down, Obama appeared to be either disgusted by Romney’s face, uninterested, bored, or just inferior. Neither of which are desirable traits, especially for a possible future president.

Videos four and five, shown above respectively, continue the trend of Obama looking down and Romney looking Obama square in the face. I’ve learned through interviewing that when a person looks down it generally means the person is not very confident. While on the other hand Romney almost never looks down, and when he is speaking he seems to be always looking right at Obama. Paired with that, Romney’s energetic hand gestures, and authoritative voice presents a politian who appears to be in the presidential race for the betterment of the American people, which is ideal for any presidential candidate.

These aspects of delivery are playing huge, unseen, roles in our current presidential election. The majority of voters will vote along political lines, no matter how any presidential debate goes. But, to those swing voters; these debates could be the deciding factor. Even in modern-day 2012, ideas and concepts derived from Aristotle’s time period on rhetoric can be applied today. 

On a side note, if the roles were reversed, and Obama was the strong energetic candidate that kept looking Romney square in the eyes, and Romney always looked down and seemed uninterested, but they said the exact same things as the original debate, would the general consensus of the “winner” have shifted in Obama’s favor? And if hypothetically it would, than the true power of rhetoric could be seen, because then purely based on visual appearances, any well trained debater could win a large variety of debates.