A Time for Change and a Candidate’s Voice: Pragmatism and the Rhetoric of Inclusion in Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Campaign

Abstract

The lens of presidential rhetorical studies provides a solid foundation for understanding Barack Obama’s campaign rhetoric. This study analyzes Barack Obama’s strategies to create a pragmatic moral voice for the presidency. The authors argue that Obama’s inclusive rhetorical campaign incorporated a rhetorical pragmatism. Rhetorical pragmatism is understood as discourse that negotiates uncertainty, generates knowledge based on human interest, expresses individualism (pluralism), and builds communities. The ends of this discourse are the means for achieving all of these. The authors found that the uncertainty of the nation’s political, social, and rhetorical situations constituted the foundation on which all Obama’s claims were staged. The ends of his campaign rhetoric were the traditional concern of constituting and reconstituting community. The authors believe, to fully appreciate Obama’s campaign rhetoric, scholars need to observe how he reconstituted an American moral voice. In uncertain times, Americans could know that there were core ideals that they could hold up and live under. They could understand the individual stories and, with the help of an adept rhetor, connect their known experience to others to reassert the meaning of America.