Presidential Rhetoric

I would like to focus my presidential rhetoric paper on audience and how the "flavor" of the argument changes with the audience.

I particularly found the whole Romney and the 47% debacle interesting and entertaining. This occurred because of mixed audiences; Romney intended this speech for a very specific audience, and it all blew up in his face when it was presented to the wrong audience. I want to look at the rhetoric he uses in this instance versus the rhetoric he uses when he is speaking to a wider audience.

I also want to contrast this with Obama's rhetoric towards his audiences. In particular, the video where he shows his support for same sex marriage. Here he also has a very specific audience in mind, however, he is slightly more successful in his address to a very specific audience than Romney was in his. I want to explore why this is and why audience is so important.

Romney and Obama both use completely different rhetoric depending on their audiences. Sometimes this rhetoric is successful and, as we can see in Romney's case, rhetoric to a specific audience can be catastrophic when presented to the wrong audience.