From John to Joe: McCain's Appeal to Middle-Class America
This blog entry is part of a Fall 2008 blogging exchange between American University in Cairo and Stanford University's Online Activism class. To read all the entries, follow this thread; be sure read the earliest entries first.
Hello, we are three students enrolled in an oral communication class considering the role of the Internet in political activism. Our names are Samantha McGirr, Ayis Megiris, and Thomas Fu. Thomas is a registered Democrat, Samantha is an independent voter, and Ayis is independent but cannot vote due to his international status. We recently performed a rhetorical analysis of the McCain-Palin website.
With its straightforward, commonsense rhetoric and layout, the McCain site is designed to appeal to an audience of white, male, undecided voters. Upon entering the site, viewers are greeted by a videotaped McCain arguing that “The last eight years haven’t worked very well, have they?” an observation probably intended to distance himself from President Bush and thus align himself more closely with moderate views. To the right of the video are several buttons labeled with action verbs such as “Learn More” and “Recruit.” Such participatory words give viewers a sense of empowerment, making them feel more invested in the campaign.
Once the viewer enters the main web site, he is greeted by rhetoric and imagery further reinforcing McCain’s commitment to the people of everyday, middle America. The site features patriotic imagery, such as stars and stripes, as well as a blue and red color scheme. The phrase “I’m Joe the Plumber” is splayed across the top of the page in kitschy, 50’s-style lettering, establishing a connection with working-class individuals with traditional values and sensibilities. McCain’s throwback to old-time Americana makes viewers nostalgic for a simpler time, before the “last eight years” severely complicated life for average citizens.
We agree that the site effectively enhances McCain’s appeal to heartland America. Thomas, whose family is from Indiana, feels a connection to the no-nonsense rhetoric, whereas Samantha, as a female from progressive San Francisco, encountered a disconnect. Ayis, from Greece, is concerned that the rhetoric shows a lack of consideration for other demographics.
Comments
Ayis, Samantha, and Thomas,
I found your post very interesting and very much enjoyed the title. I very much like that you introduce yourselves according to your party affiliations before you start your rhetorical analysis and after, describing how each of you responded to McCaine’s website. This gives Egyptian students who may not necessarily know the exact differences between the opinions of Democrats and Republicans a personal idea of how the respective parties differ in response to the appeals used by McCain to attract voters.
I personally find myself cringe as I look at the words “I’m Joe the Plumber” splashed across the website. It’s a simplistic idea that tries to turn a blind eye to what is actually going on. This view of “old-time Americana” underestimates and oversimplifies the complexities that we are faced with and have always been faced with.
Posted by: Silke Martin | November 3, 2008 12:18 PM
Even though the website analysis as such is very informative in general and expresses a precise and thorough implementation of proper observation techniques, parts of it do still lack a definite interpretation of the analyzed rhetorical components. At some points this might even be misleading as to the understanding of the website's actual intentions. Additions here would have not considerably increased the overall length of the blog.
What is referred to in the blog as a "straightforward, commonsense rhetoric and layout" should rather be understood as a clearly naive simplification, apparently meant to appeal to an audience of white, male, undecided voters without college (maybe even without high school) education, basically coming from the Midwest or suburban America, preferably Anglo Saxons with little or no tolerance for minorities. This is instead of what the blog mentioned, reducing its comment to "white, male, undecided voters".
It is questionable that there is any reason to believe that Mc Cain is distancing himself from President Bush - which he certainly tries to do - must necessarily also mean that he wants to align more closely with moderate views as the website mentions. Therefore, we have nothing telling us that he wouldn't even go into a more conservative direction to the further right.
As it is true that Mc Cain apparently aims at establishing a link with the working-class individual it should have been mentioned that even "Joe, the Plumber" can not be seen as a representative of the entire American working class, but only as one of the Anglo Saxon majority. The name alone clearly excludes most other categories of different ethnic origins.
The patriotic images should have also been identified as being a very clear political "macho rhetoric".
Posted by: Rana El Samaa | November 4, 2008 11:13 PM