A More Perfect Union - Barack Obama

Introduction

The year of 2008 brought an unforgettable election. From the first female presidential candidate to the first colored male presidential candidate, this election gave a lot to talk about. Although the 2008, elections had many first candidates the one thing that remained the same were the things that were thrown back and forth between opponents and all the dirt that was brought up to the surface about each candidate (Hayden, 7). Through all this Barack Obama demonstrated to be a great rhetorician over and over again. A great example of his success can be demonstrated in his speech A More Perfect Union. In this paper, we are going to analyze Barack Obama's Speech A More Perfect Union.

Discussion

The speech was given in the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 18, 2008. The main goal of this speech was to address the statements that were made by Obama's former pastor, Reverend Wright. The statements that were made by Wright expressed his views in racial matters which were not positive, and many found them to be offensive. Reverend Wright had been involved in Obama's life from participating in his wedding to being the one that baptized his daughters. Obama himself even said he considers him part of the family. Due to the fact that Obama associated himself with Wright, people then associated him with the comments that were made. Although he might have lost some voters for this reason, he easily won them back through his speech. When you look at the big picture one can see that, in this speech his main audience is those who are eligible to vote, but if you are to zoom in and take a closer look you can see that his audience is those who were affected in one way or another with what was said by Reverend Wright. Obama used a small anecdote in his speech to demonstrate what he had been through as a child, he used examples 2 which everyone would be able relate to, and historical information to tie in one of his main arguments (Jonathan, 03). Throughout his speech, he made sure that everything related in one way or another and demonstrated the trait of loyalty, which many people admire.

Obama opens up his speech with a quote from the preamble of the United States constitution, a document which is of great importance to America and its people. This quote leads the reader to understand that the rest of his speech is also of great importance and seriousness. In addition to this he also chooses to use vocabulary including words such as incendiary or quintessentially which might not be understood by everyone, giving his speech a touch of sophistication. Along with this he also mentions events and people of the past, which might present some difficulties of fully understanding what is being said in the speech to the recent generations who are not familiar with it. The fact that Obama associated himself with Reverend Wright ...