Mitt Romney’s Presidential Campaign Speech.

Mitt Romney launched his Presidential Campaign Announcement Speech in New Hampshire on June 2nd 2011. On January 10th he wins the primary election in New Hampshire by 39,4% the effect of his opening speech must’ve made quite the impression on the residents in New Hampshire. Traditionally New Hampshire is “ruled” by the Republican Party and is seen as the most Conservative part of the northeastern parts of the US. The reason this can be seen as such a victory should be seen in the light of Barack Obama getting the majority of the voters in 2008. The state has only been won by the Democrats four times before Obama. Since the mid-term election in 2006 the Democrats seem to gain ground. Therefore, Mitt Romney must have felt quite pleased with the result. So when analyzing the speech is this a ground breaking speech with clear purpose and rhetoric?
The purpose of the speech is of course to define himself as a worthwhile candidate who is able to win the election for the Republican Party and lead the USA to better times. By natural selection this of course make President Obama and the Democratic Party their enemy. Mitt Romney has to present himself as a leader and born Alpha Male. In order to do that he must elevate himself, his family and put down and ridicule President Obama and his work.
Mitt Romney’s speech is composed in such a way that he welcomes and thanks his hosts. From lines 11 – 30 establishes a link between himself as a speaker “I” and the audience “We”. In this introduction he also links with the past history of America and its “belief in liberty and equality” (l. 26). He points out that America has no monarchy, aristocracy or dynasties with the quote from Red Sox to the New York Yankees “There are no dynasties in America” (l. 29 – 30) in a humorous tone.
The second part of his speech is opened by a rhetorical question: “Who rules this great nation?” (l. 32). This part ends on page two, line 34 and ends with “No, Mr. President, you’ve had your chance” (l. 33). This part is mainly and consists of an appeal to popular emotion based on the idea of the perfect America. “We are united” (l. 41). After having established the unity between the “I”, the “We”, New Hampshire farm and the rest of America he then launches an attack on President Obama.
The third part of the speech is based on the example of the Tyler family in Nevada. He generalizes by establishing them as “just Americans” (l. 45) and identifies them with “millions of Americans” (l. 48) in a Sweeping generalization including the Statue of Liberty (p. 3 l. 11).

After having given this example of a typical American family he establishes his own ethos by saying: “I believe in that America” (l. 16). Again he attacks President Obama for seeing a different America and continues on that from line 21 to page 4 line 8 ending with “President Obama’s European answers are not the right solution to America’s challenges”.
In the fourth part from line 10 page 4 to page 5 line 40 Mitt Romney deals with his personal story and his father’s. His reason for doing this he argument with “[…] the American ideals of economic freedom and opportunity need a clear and unapologetic defense […] because I’ve lived it” (l. 11 page 4). He covers his business experiences over 25 years as well as turning around the Olympics and governing a state. When he finishes with his personal story he launches an attack at Obamacare and the American union bosses where after he proceeds to tell the story of his dad.
The ideas embodied by himself and his father are the ideas of America as a country “the land of opportunities” (p. 5 l. 35). In conclusion of the whole speech he moves from line 42 “We stand for freedom, opportunity and hope” to “I’m Mitt Romney. I believe in America” (p. 6 l. 3). He then finishes his speech by declaring he’s running for the presidency.
In the speech ethos, pathos and logos are elements of importance. Mitt Romney uses a lot of pathos to establish emotional bond between himself and his audience. By highlighting the American ideas of freedom he successfully achieves an enlarged idea of the local people of the farm to the whole of America. When he narrates his owns and his father’s stories he establishes himself as a worthy president within these ideals and he uses ethos to do so. No doubt however, that pathos lies implicit in the effect on the audience. It’s an established fact that the pathos in the story lies with his father and not with himself as a character. He has not worked his way into money like his father did. He didn’t have to struggle like Obama. Obviously this is not a point he is interested in emphasizing. The logos is seen in his attack on President Obama on page 2 where he repeats “Three years later” 5 times. The 5 times is a catalogue of Obama’s failures. It’s a well known rhetorical device called “Tricolon”. After this he quickly switches to ethos line 28 page 2 “It breaks my heart, to see what’s happening in this country.” This kind of argument is an appeal to pity, also known as “argumentium ad misericordiam”.
Mitt Romney uses an inductive argument when dealing with his own and his father’s work experiences. In this line of story of course he fails to mention the Bain Corporation which made him rich by “firing” people as he said in one of his later speeches: “I like firing people”. This of course has created much amusement all over America. He uses logos when presenting his own results in office and says: “When I took office I faced a nearly 3 billion dollar budget hole” (l. 29). Furthermore he says in line 41 “At the end of four years, it took over 800 vetoes but we balanced every budget, restored a 2 billion dollar rainy day fund, and kept our schools first amongst 50 states.” (l . 42 p. 4). The results are quite impressive and must appeal to the middle class voters on the east coast.
He also uses a few figures of speech when he mentions the withdrawal dates in Afghanistan: “The Taliban may not have watches but they do have calendars” (l. 43 p. 3) with a humorous tone. He continues on page 5 line 9 “My generation will pass the torch to the next generation, not a bill.”. In this way he criticizes Obama’s foreign policies. He is willing to give credit to Obama for the removal of Osama Bin Laden however, not without the critical follow up statement on watches and calendars.
He also manages to criticize Obamacare by claiming that the experts in Washington take power away from people. This is quite interesting as it is well known that Romney was one of the first to introduce Healthcare in Massachusetts. We know that one of Obama’s catchwords was “hope” and he ridicules this by implying the Republicans are the only ones who “stand for freedom and opportunity and hope” (l. 43 p. 5). He ridicules Obama and talks about him in a derogative way “we gave someone new a chance to lead”. Thereby we get the impression that Obama got a fair chance when in fact Mitt Romney furthered his own ethos.
Mitt Romney’s claim for presidency is based on his embodiment on traditional American ideals and his claim is mainly supported by his family story and his attack on the shortcomings of President Obama. His legal claim based on the Presidential Announcement Campaign Speech. Is Mitt Romney's speech persuasive? To a certain degree he persuaded voters in Iowa on the 3rd of January by 25%. However, he did not persuade the voters in South Carolina, who voted for New Gingrich, whose aggressive style is of the Alpha Male type. Furthermore Mitt Romney's tax payment is scrutinized. Obama in his recent speech said that incomes over 1 million dollars should pay more in tax. Obama did not directly mention Mitt Romney's name. But a few days ago it was revealed that Mitt Romney paid 15 percent of an earnings of 45 million dollars last year. Standard payment for workers is at 35%. Foreign correspondent at Weekendavisen says that he has heard Mitt Romney repeat the same speech five times. Mitt Romney's speeches work, but for how long?

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[ 1 ]. http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire
[ 2 ]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy
[ 3 ]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBOqLxzGTx8