Rhetoric Skills of Michelle Obama and Ann Romney

Michelle Obama and Ann Romney's speeches both pulled at the heart strings of America. By sharing difficult stories of their childhood and the hardworking family they were brought up by show the true American dream. Although, both their speeches were based around hard working Americans that deserve a President that knows what it is to work hard to make something happen, the delivery in my opinion is what swayed me to be more interested in Michelle's speech. In order to be an excellent speaker and gain the attention of the audience one must use rhetoric, along with passion for what they are speaking about. In Ann's speech, she had no ethos whatsoever. Her speech was rather a story that bragged about her husband and ranted about how great of a mother she thought she was. The speech did have a lot of pathos, but these emotions she evoked were from mothers and grandmothers. Her speech was too rehearsed as well as it seemed fake. With Ann's fake laugh and stone looking face I was unable to really make a connection with her as well as her speech she was trying to give. Michelle, on the other hand, seemed to feel at home in front of the podium. Her ability to use rhetoric to gain the attention of the audience was evident in her first few sentences of the speech. She had a glowing smile and a sincere laugh. Michelle was able to effectively use her hands and facial expressions throughout the speech to elevate her point. During Michelle's speech her ethos contained President Obama, the Senate, along with other government officials. She was able to effectively establish logos without seeming to brag. One logos Michelle brought up was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. By reminding the audience of this act she evoked emotion from most of the women since this bill created equal pay for women. Although Michelle's speech contained ethos, pathos, and logos some might criticize both her and Ann for not using as much as they should. However, I believe that as a First Lady a speech should not be all about business and statistics but rather hit the tip of the iceberg of the issue. My biasness did not affect the way theses speeches were viewed. I am politically inclined. I choose not to get involved in politics due to the fact that there will always be criticism. No one is perfect and most importantly one person cannot fix problems that have been here for 50+ years. Due to the fact that I stay away from politics and have not heard any of Mitt Romney or President Obama's speeches I can honestly say my own beliefs did not poison my thoughts of the speeches of Ann and Michelle. With Michelle's heartwarming smile and the personality of a go-getter she made for a much better public speaker than the rehearsed, emotionless Ann Romney.