Despite its decline in the last hundred years, rhetoric is still very much alive in English departments and colleges of arts and sciences around the nation.  And that means rhetorical analysis is still alive.  Of course, armchair rhetorical analysis happens by all of us whenever we communicate with another human, and it happens on political shows without ceasing.  But the pros do it best.  In this story, Jack Shafer discusses one professor’s rhetorical analysis of Obama’s magical ability to move us without actually saying anything. 

Obama’s grand rhetoric did, however, win him 90 percent of the black vote and 52 percent of the white vote in the Virginia primary this week. Voters might not know what he said, but they have a good idea of what he means.

This is key.  Some studies have shown that gut reactions to a candidate are often the most reliable ones, rather than reactions after lots of analysis.  Obama “telegraphs” his message in ways (surprise, surprise) similar to the current president.  They both use code words, metaphor, and symbol to transcend logic and go right to the heart.  Obama just uses appropriate grammar doing it.  Bush skips that part, sometimes.

The Clinton campaign machine is sucking wind like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, now that Hillary’s passive-aggressive, race-oriented attacks against Obama clearly backfired. Hillary’s huge loss in Georgia, where the Democratic base is largely black, sends the Clintons a strong message: Many black Democrats don’t like you after all. Hillary does not own the so-called “black vote.”

Although Obama won several states, he still trails in pledged delegates. Obama’s strongest wins were in his home state of Illinois and Georgia, where he’ll receive a significant share of the 288 delegates in those states.

Obama also won North Dakota, Missouri, Kansas, Minnesota, Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, and Utah with 278 delegates up for grabs.

Clinton won her home state of New York and somehow managed to confuse Democrats in New Jersey and Massachusetts by winning in those states. Clinton has also duped Democrats in Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Arizona, and has won a sizable share of the 235 delegates in those states.

With very little ideological difference between Clinton and Obama it seems that Democrats cannot decide if they want a half-African as president or a woman.

The Republicans, on the other hand, are in the midst of an obvious identity crisis. Republican strategists are likely hoping that Clinton wins the Democratic nomination (which will probably happen) because a short, 71-year-old white guy doesn’t stand a chance against Obama if the Republicans choose McCain.

Conservatives understand why Dobson, Coulter, Limbaugh, and others are against McCain. Many wonder if he’s actually a conservative. “John McCain is not only bad for Republicanism, which he definitely is - he is bad for the country,” says Ann Coulter.

Additionally, it seems that America is ready for something different than a white male in the White House. Why are Republicans so incapable of producing a non-white male or female electable candidate for the office of president? Alan Keyes is totally unelectable, too quirky, and should never be encouraged to run for public office ever again. Moreover, the passing-over of J.C. Watts while he was in the House was truly scandalous.

As a result of Republican’s inability to construct a cohesive message and cultivate candidates that represent a changing America, a decisive loss should be expected in November, especially if Obama emerges as the Democrat’s choice.

How did Waring Howe, Jr., a personal injury attorney running a one-horse practice in South Carolina, become one of the most sought-after men in Democratic politics? By becoming one of an elite group known as the “super delegates.” WORLD’s Jamie Dean reports:

The 796 super delegates comprise about 20 percent of the 4,049 delegates sent to the Democratic nominating convention this summer, and they hold unique power. he majority of convention delegates are elected by state parties and are considered “pledged delegates,” which means they must vote in the nominating convention for the presidential candidate who won their states’ primaries. When a candidate wins a state primary, the delegates he or she picks up are pledged delegates.

But super delegates, or “unpledged delegates,” are considered free agents: They aren’t bound to their states’ choice for a nominee, and they may commit support to any candidate they choose at any time during the primary season.

With state primaries seesawing between Senators Obama and Clinton, people like Howe may hold in their hands the futures of some of the most powerful people in politics.

Jon Favreau is Barack Obama’s chief speechwriter, and a lot of people would probably say Obama’s chief weapon in this campaign.  Mr. Favreau is 26 years old.  In this brief Times profile, the young and talented Favreau offers no new insights into speechwriting.  He just seems to be a normal guy with an understanding of language and rhetoric.  Kids these days, I tell you.

Over at Townhall.com, Doug Giles, author of A Time to Clash: Papers from a Provocative Pastor, uncorks on Barack Hussein Obama, or B-HO, as he likes to call the Democratic darling:

Barack Hussein Obama (or B-HO, as I like to call him) charismatically and emphatically denied reports this week that he is a closeted Muslim and instead declared candidly and with youthful verve that he believes in Jesus Christ.

Brian Williams and Mark Cuban, both carrying parasols, were sitting in the crowd during that news conference, and it has been reported that when B-HO gave this statement regarding his faith that they let out a shriek, threw their panties at him, and then swooned.

So I’m liking this Giles guy, right? He goes on to tick off the reasons why B-HO’s claims to love Jesus will never fly, because the Jesus of Scripture is squarely opposed to most of the social doctrine that B-HO upholds.

C’mon, Barack. You can’t play the Billy Graham I’m-a-solid-Christian-man card when your voting record and your church’s manifesto are that vapid toward biblical verities.

Much as I love Giles’s snarky style, I disagree with him here. B-HO can play that card all he wants because the Christian Left is fashionable. Personal morality is out. Social morality is in. It’s okay to murder a baby, so long as you don’t murder a whale. It’s okay to irrevocably alter the fabric of the human family, so long as you don’t leave a carbon footprint while doing it. And the Bible? A mere prop useful for justifying entitlement programs.

B-HO can and will invoke his malleable “Gumby Jesus” to great effect in this campaign — and many itchy-eared voters will be taken in –  because the real Jesus is “an offense.”

News of the decline of language has, it seems, been greatly exaggerated. Which is to say, rhetoric - that old timey art of talking and writing - is not dead, not by a longshot. Everybody practices rhetoric every day, in emails, in conversation, in PowerPoint presentations, and on the campaign trail. Obama’s greatest strength is his ability to use language in powerful ways (this author of a new rhetoric book suggests that Bush’s ability to use language is just as powerful), which leads to the question:

Does a great speech make a great politician or leader?

Hillary Rodham Clinton last week pointedly said not necessarily, noting, in a phrase she borrowed from Mario M. Cuomo, “You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose.” But [former JFK speechwriter] Mr. Sorensen, who is supporting Mr. Obama, said there was a real link between inspirational oratory and inspirational leadership.

“The most important quality for a president, as Kennedy and Roosevelt demonstrated, is not how many roll call votes he answered sitting in the Senate, but his qualities as a leader who can mobilize people, inspire them, galvanize them, arouse them to action,” he said. “The ability to inspire and excite an audience on the campaign trail is one of the reasons I think Obama will be a success as president.”

Great rhetorical skill is no adjunct to great leadership; it is a part of leadership…because leadership requires persuasion of small and large groups of people, and that’s what rhetoric is all about.

I am no political writer or analyst, but here’s my poorly-intuited belief about the past, the present, and the future of the 2008 presidential race:

1. The democrats and many of their independent friends are falling in love with Obama. He has charmed them, and for a while, they thought he would be a foil for Clinton’s tough talk, adding leaven to the campaign the way Nader did in 2000, the way Ron Paul almost did this year. They didn’t really think Obama could win (too young, too inexperienced), but they liked liking him, and it kept Hillary more fair and more honest, having to contend with a guy like that.

2. Then, Obama won in Iowa.

3. All of a sudden, the fanciful fling with Obama is turning into a real love affair, and the dems are getting starry-eyed thinking of marriage. His one real issue (electability) seemed to disappear with the Iowa win, and the Left is absolutely smitten with the possibility that they could nominate a black man to run for president (I like Obama, I do). But I mean, they are smitten with the idea of him.

4. This smitten-ness is going to get him the nomination.

5. And then, Obama is going to go up against (FILL IN THE BLANK), the Republican candidate. And Obama’s going to lose big, because - no matter how well-spoken, how funny, how self-effacing, how utterly diverse and American and hopeful, he’s just too young, too inexperienced. The black thing isn’t as much a big deal as the age thing.

6. And so, Obama will lose. And the left will lose their starry-eyed smiles and hate themselves for hating on Hillary, they will hate themselves for the way they mocked and mangled and abandoned her during this month. Becuase, they’ll admit, she maybe could have won against (FILL IN THE BLANK), the Republican.

It won’t be pretty to watch, but it may just happen. But, I invite your thoughts. Does my theory hold water?

The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen says it’s not unusual to catch presidential candidates in a lie.

John Edwards lied about the cost of his haircuts. Fred Thompson lied about lobbying for a pro-choice outfit. John McCain insists that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation.” Mitt Romney concocted the story about how his father marched with Martin Luther King Jr. And Rudy Giuliani is a one-man fib machine […] Yet it is something Barack Obama said that bothers me most of all because Obama is a new kind of politician. He is supposed to be coolly authentic.

What did Obama say, and does it belie his hip young authenticity? 

The phrase “The Church of Oprah” is not new. Tim Meadows was mocking her god-like status on SNL more than a decade ago. Two years ago, Al Mohler echoed what most Americans already knew: “She promises meaning without truth, acceptance without judgment, and fulfillment without self-denial.” With her endorsement of - and sermonizing for - Barack Obama, Frank Rich says he prefers the Church of Oprah to the kinds of churches and theologies preached by the Republican candidates:

This country has had its fill of often hypocritical family-values politicians dictating what is and is not acceptable religious and moral practice. Instead of handing down tablets of what constitutes faith in America, Romney-style, the Oprah-Obama movement practices an American form of ecumenicalism. It preaches a bit of heaven on earth in the form of a unified, live-and-let-live democracy that is greater than the sum of its countless disparate denominations. The pitch - or, to those who are not fans, the shtick - may be corny. “The audacity of hope” is corny too. But corn is preferable to holier-than-thou, and not just in Iowa.

The “hypocritical family-values politicians” is a bit of a straw man here, but he has a point. Oprah’s spiritual language and religious credibility may be rubbing off on Obama.

Among likely Democratic caucus-goers in this ABC News/Washington Post poll, 33 percent support Obama, 29 percent Clinton and 20 percent Edwards, with single-digit support for the other Democratic candidates, ABC News reports. That’s similar to the 30-26-22 percent division in the last ABC/Post poll in Iowa a month ago.

After her long, double-digit lead over Obama, why do you think Hillary is falling behind?