In this video, Christine O'Donnell, GOP candidate for Delaware Senate speaks at a press conference in Washington D.C. in front of a crowd of her supporters. The first thing that I noticed about this speech was how bad of a public speaker O'Donnell is. She constantly pauses and occasionally stutters which definitely takes away from anything she was trying to say. She introduces her speech with a a song which definitely takes away from her professionalism as well. She then begins to state random information about what liberals have done since taking office last year, apparently referencing the presidential elections. She says how "they forced us to pay for overseas abortions", and "ended the Oppurtunity Scholar's Program". She seems to mix the issues a lot when she speaks, saying things such as "how's that for pro-choice" when talking about something completely unrelated to abortions or that issue. I think that her main rhetorical strategy is to include key words in her speech that are typically heard from GOP candidates, like Constitution, liberty, and typical anti-government slogans. She even quotes Thomas Jefferson in saying how man has always had to make the decision of whether to govern himslef or be governed by a small elite. She does not relate parts of her speech which is annoying and makes much of the speech hard to follow. Another thing that I noticed was that she never makes any direct accusations toward any specific member of the Liberal Party, and only makes vague accusations. What surprised me is how many cheers she received for comments that meant nothing and said nothing about what she would do if she actually won, which she never said anything about throughout her speech. At the end of her speech she makes vague references to the liberal media and how "we" will be attacked but will not falter. Overall I thought that how painfully bad O'Donnell is at public speaking and little she actually said about really any issue at all in her speech made her rhetoric completely ineffective toward anyone but the most brainwashed people, which seem to be the members of the Tea Party. It is troubling that the members of this audience seem to cheer for practically anything O'Donnell says which is troubling to see.
Yeah Jared, this video is pretty pathetic. First, O’Donnell is, in fact, a terrible speaker. Second, you’re right, she doesn’t really relate anything she says to anything else. It’s all so random. I actually had to stop listening because it was too painful. You never mention it, but I imagine that this speech is exactly what George Orwell despised about political rhetoric.
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