obama’s change: republicanism, remembrance, and ......leadership in the 2007 presidential...

Obama’s Change: Republicanism,Remembrance, and RhetoricalLeadership in the 2007 PresidentialAnnouncement SpeechAdam J. Gaffey

This essay offers an analysis of Barack Obama’s official announcement speech of 2007

and his definition of ‘‘change.’’ Contrary to critics who have separated ‘‘vernacular’’

and ‘‘elite’’ strands of republican philosophy, I argue that Obama’s ‘‘change’’ rhetorically

combined these frameworks into a threefold appeal for political leadership: the expansion

of collective freedom, the necessary participation of citizens in public affairs, and the

centrality of speechifying to political leadership. Understanding this characterization of

change allows better comprehension of Obama’s transition from politician to presidential

candidate within his situational constraints, as well as the distinctive public memory

attributed to Abraham Lincoln throughout the announcement speech.

In his summary of the 2008 election, Michael Grunwald defined Barack Obama’s

victory as a fusion of persona and political climate: ‘‘Obama was a change candidate

in a change election.’’1 Grunwald was right. No other term was more essential to the

Obama campaign than ‘‘change.’’2 The symbolic potency of change is particularly

evident as incumbents and challengers find themselves opposing the merits of con-

stancy versus alteration. Put differently, change is a discursive appeal and is subject

to situational perceptions. Despite the centrality of this term to Obama’s campaign,

scholars have not asked how—before he was remembered as a ‘‘change candidate’’—Obama himself discursively defined change. This essay is a partial remedy.

Adam J. Gaffey, School of Arts and Humanities, Black Hills State University. Correspondence to: Adam J. Gaffey,

School of Arts and Humanities, College of Liberal Arts, Black Hills State University, 1200 University Drive,

Spearfish, SD 57799-9003. E-mail: [email protected]

Southern Communication Journal

Vol. 79, No. 5, November–December 2014, pp. 407–426

ISSN 1041-794X (print)/1930-3203 (online)

# 2014 Southern States Communication Association. DOI: 10.1080/1041794X.2014.928900

No text better illustrates the intricate debut of ‘‘change’’ to the 2008 campaign than

Barack Obama’s presidential announcement speech. Amid the dense Lincolnian

atmosphere of the announcement, it is easy to overlook Obama’s discursive focus

of the event. Speaking in front of the Old State Capital in Springfield, Illinois, and

addressing an outdoor crowd in early February (two days prior to Lincoln’s birthday),

Obama invoked an incredible historical analogy whilst making his entrance to the

2008 race official: ‘‘[I]n the shadow of the Old State Capital, where Lincoln once called

on a house divided to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still

live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president of the United

States of America.’’3 Media reactions took obvious note. Some called the juxtaposition

of the two men ‘‘flawless’’ while others chastised the ‘‘hubris’’ of the symbolic

marriage.4 Contrary to initial reactions, a historical comparison with Lincoln was

not Obama’s primary focus in the announcement speech. Obama’s invocation of

Lincoln was a key element in a larger discursive definition of ‘‘change.’’ In the follow-

ing essay, I argue that Barack Obama’s presidential announcement speech defined

‘‘change’’ by combining distinctive frameworks of civic republican philosophy and,

in the process, introduced a new public memory of Abraham Lincoln as a fitting

model to legitimate Obama’s own characteristics for rhetorical leadership.

Analyzing Obama’s initial use of the change trope yields multiple benefits. First,

Obama’s engagement with the term continued far beyond his initial campaign.5 Second,

despite an otherwise robust engagement with Obama’s oratory, critical attention to his

entrance to the 2008 election has been comparatively subdued.6 This analysis sheds light

on the public ideology evident at the outset of Obama’s campaign. Indeed, as the Obama

presidency has faced political deadlock and the discourse of division, a return to the

origins of ‘‘change’’ also helps us understand the potentials and limitations of such

ascension rhetoric. Among the insights derived from the announcement speech, two

conclusions will be explored at length. First, Obama utilizes two distinctive perspectives

of civic republicanism in this speech, fusing what Jennifer R. Mercieca and James Arnt

Aune defined as ‘‘elite’’ and ‘‘vernacular’’ republican discourse.7 Second, Obama’s civic

republican conception of change allows him to craft the components of rhetorical lead-

ership needed to diffuse the dominant situational constraints within the context of the

speech. To support the above claims and my republican reading of Obama’s announce-

ment speech, this essay proceeds with an overview of Obama’s entrance to the 2008 race,

the announcement speech, and a summary of the relevant dimensions of the republican

public philosophy essential to this text. Next, I offer a critical analysis of the text that

outlines Obama’s rhetorical appeal to change, while summarizing alterations of this

term that emerged following its original debut. Finally, I postulate the importance of

the text within the spectrum of Obama’s later campaign speeches and the implications

of its strategy for rhetors facing perceptions of difference in U.S. political discourse.

The Announcement in Context: Expectations of History

Barack Obama’s political biography is defined by perceptions of difference. His

biracial and international upbringing makes for a rare story in American political history.

408 The Southern Communication Journal

As numerous scholars have demonstrated, Obama’s rhetorical appeals often begin

and move away from perceptions of difference. David A. Frank claims that Obama’s

discourse relies on ‘‘a dissociation seeking to ‘remodel’ the American perception of

identity from division into unity.’’8 This theme is most evident in his breakthrough

2004 keynote address to the Democratic National Convention, a speech that, in Evan

Thomas’s words, ‘‘launched [Obama] into the strange world of celebritydom.’’9 More

than just a gateway to recognition, Robert C. Rowland and John M. Jones credit this

single speech as a ‘‘key turning point in American politics,’’ shifting the rhetorical

emphasis from individualism toward communitarian values in Obama’s narrative

of the American Dream.10 Obama’s new vocabulary of unity resonated with political

observers. Following his electoral victory in 2004, Obama transitioned from a little-

known Illinois state senator to ‘‘the speaker most coveted by campaigning Democrats’’

in 2006.11

Once elected to the U.S. Senate, Obama continued to position himself as outside

the political norm, stressing themes of collective responsibility amid a new political

landscape. Commentator William Kristol likened Obama’s brief time in the Senate

to the political career of Robert Kennedy. Obama proved to be a ‘‘gifted politician

and anti-politician’’ who was simultaneously ‘‘familiar with the halls of power yet

a charismatic critic of them.’’12 On topics like political corruption13 and the malaise

of executive leadership,14 Obama fulfilled his role as both participant and outsider,

continually breaking dichotomies and upending conventional wisdom. This repu-

tation added to the momentum for a presidential campaign. Casting convention

on patient political grooming aside, Obama attempted a swift political ascension.

In the span of less than two years, he became a significant presence in the Democratic

Party, and, some political insiders predicted, a likely presidential candidate in 2012,

2016, or even 2008.15 With unprecedented public interest, Obama did not wait.16

The topoi of optimism and reform are powerful. Equally powerful, however, are

the constraints that face an unconventional presidential candidacy. As John M.

Murphy has argued, Obama’s early campaign was initially defined by a two-pronged

‘‘inventional dilemma’’: He lacked experience as an elected official and was appealing

to break the racial barrier of the U.S. presidency.17 These two constraints were

strikingly evident in the lead-up to Obama’s announcement speech in 2007. Senator

Hillary Clinton, believed by many to be the presumptive Democratic nominee,

entered the 2008 race with what one strategist called ‘‘decades’’ of ‘‘built-in advan-

tages’’ and polling numbers suggesting that her national experience was a key asset.18

By contrast, Obama’s entrance from two years in the U.S. Senate meant inheriting the

unsavory mantle of being ‘‘green’’ or ‘‘the least battle-hardened major candidate in

modern memory.’’19

Though more difficult to quantify, Obama’s race was also a key element to under-

standing the situational constraints of his early campaign. As Murphy notes, Obama’s

mere presence in the presidential campaign illustrated his position as a candidate:

‘‘He had no successful presidential predecessor.’’20 While polling around the time

of Obama’s announcement reflected race as a minor concern for voters,21 the fact

remains that ‘‘voters rarely admit to prejudice.’’22 Before addressing his audience

Obama’s Change 409

in Springfield, however, it was clear that Obama framed his racial identity beyond the

mold set by prior African American candidates. As Celeste Condit and John Lucaites

have demonstrated, in Jesse Jackson’s unsuccessful attempts to gain the Democratic

Party nomination in 1984 and 1988, he appealed to ‘‘black America and the whole

marginalia of Americans who characterized themselves as oppressed minorities.’’23

Jackson’s dominant metaphors—the ‘‘rainbow’’ and the ‘‘quilt’’—underscored the

importance of including others while paradoxically maintaining a sense of enduring

difference among demographic populations.24 Obama’s public discussions on race—

or lack thereof—departed from this strategy. Instead of folding distinctive identities

into a joint effort, Obama was more likely to universalize issues beyond identification

of the downtrodden and oppressed. Gwen Ifill observed Obama’s reluctance in the

following way: ‘‘When given the chance to talk about race in the ways most expected

to hear, he resisted. Race was worth talking about, he thought, but only in the context

of broader issues.’’25 Though he was appealing to break the racial barrier to the presi-

dency, Ron Walters has noted, Obama included no reference to racial problems

in America during his announcement speech and did not make a single reference

to his identity as an African American candidate. In place of race, Obama

presented himself at the ‘‘cusp of a new generation’’ in the midst of major political

transformation.26 This absence seemed deliberate. Indeed, James Darsey read the

announcement speech as Obama’s rhetoric of ‘‘the American journey,’’ a position

that frames ‘‘justice, opportunity, and prosperity’’ as equally important and applicable

to everyone.27

While lacking both the perceived ‘‘leadership credentials’’ from the pool of poten-

tial nominees, as well as a proven strategy for addressing the issue of race in American

politics, the prospect of an Obama presidency seemed unlikely in 2007.28 How did

Obama confront the loaded constraints of being inexperienced and breaking the

racial barrier on the presidency? Within the immediate context of Obama’s

announcement speech, the answer was ‘‘change.’’ As I argue in later analysis, change

was Obama’s appeal to reconstitute the expectations of rhetorical leadership and

to propose an ideal of communal advancement carefully framed through a lens of

racial justice. Though the causes for Obama’s eventual advancement in the primaries

cannot be attributed wholly to a change versus experience discourse,29 by early 2008

‘‘change’’ held such a ubiquitous presence in the political language—Senator Clinton

frequently claimed 35 years of experience making change30—that some wondered

whether the term was a meaningful expression or fodder for parody.31 Writing in

the New York Times during the early primary season, Michael Kinsley dismissed

the bland, catchall status of the word. Emphasizing ‘‘change’’ allowed voters to ‘‘give

it any meaning they wish,’’ Kinsley argued, while being ‘‘a candidate for change’’ was

to avoid specifics.32 Kinsey’s frustration with ‘‘change’’ as a roaming signifier is

understandable. A close examination of the Obama presidential announcement

speech, however, proves Kinsley wrong. As my reading of the announcement speech

indicates, Obama’s change was constructed within multiple perspectives of the

republicanism political philosophy. Evaluating the debut of change in 2007 expands

our understanding of how appeals to public memory and rhetorical leadership helped


Obama transition from popular politician to viable presidential candidate. Before this

close reading of the text, however, it is important to highlight relevant themes of

republicanism evident in Obama’s announcement.

Republican Frameworks in Obama’s Announcement Speech

Civic republicanism is not beholden to a major political party.33 As Murphy has sum-

marized, republicanism is more accurately understood as ‘‘an interpretive frame-

work’’ that is ‘‘offered by speakers to make sense of events and to render political

judgments.’’34 Far from an unchanging set of principles, political theory exists as

what Jennifer R. Mercieca has called a type of ‘‘fiction,’’ or persuasive appeal

employed in an uncertain context.35 Republican political philosophy, Michael Sandel

has argued, is generally defined as a framework that ‘‘affirms a politics of the com-

mon good’’ while positioning citizens as ‘‘members of a political community control-

ling its own fate in society.’’36 Of the varied interpretations of republicanism, two

competing perspectives converge in Obama’s announcement speech: ‘‘elite’’ and

‘‘vernacular’’ republicanism.

In Political Style: The Artistry of Power, Robert Hariman synthesized characteristic

traits of republican public philosophy derived from letters penned by Cicero. Chief

among the traits of classical republicanism, Hariman claimed, is the presumption

that ‘‘self-government’’ is the ideal form for achieving good policy, which, in turn,

presumes that ‘‘citizens’ political activities should be motivated and guided by civic

virtues.’’37 Civic institutions and representatives, moreover, are assigned with

cultivating ‘‘a moral sense in the citizenry that would result in decision being made

primarily with regard to the common good.’’38 Republicanism appeals to public

virtue and civic participation, Hariman explained, through ‘‘practices of cultural

memory’’ and ‘‘the social practice of public debate and the performative ideals

of the art of oratory.’’39 In their analysis of William Manning’s 1798 pamphlet

Key of Libberty, Jennifer R. Mercieca and James Arnt Aune draw a contrast between

what they term Ciceronian ‘‘elite’’ republicanism and the American tradition

of ‘‘vernacular’’ republicanism.40 While Cicero’s republicanism valued public

participation and consensus, Mercieca and Aune argue that vernacular republicanism

is, by contrast, predicated on ‘‘the aggressive use of a rhetoric of critique’’ that seeks

to open public debate for the common good.41 Elite leadership is distrusted and civic

involvement is necessary insomuch as the public needs to ‘‘rectify the discrepancy

between the promise of republicanism that serves the interest of the many and the

reality of republicanism that serves the interest of the few.’’42

In the opening of his announcement speech, Obama initially aligns his campaign

with a vernacular republican frame, shunning ‘‘a politics that has shut you out, that’s

told you to settle, that’s divided us for too long’’ as the villain of the age.43 Highlight-

ing the lack of citizen involvement in the current system, Obama pledges to cease the

‘‘game’’ wherein lobbyists and insiders ‘‘get the access’’ while citizens with less access

to the process ‘‘get to write a letter.’’44 Obama frames his campaign as the antidote

for this social ill. Borrowing a phrase from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Obama


concludes with a promise to unite the withered relation between citizens and repre-

sentatives and to ‘‘usher in a new birth of freedom on this Earth.’’45

Based on his juxtaposition of political opposition and the promise of replacing

elite factions with public participation, Obama’s announcement speech appears on

first sight to be rooted in the vernacular republican tradition outlined by Mercieca

and Aune. However, the detailed definition of ‘‘change’’ as the means by which

the campaign will succeed shifts attention from a vernacular to an elite framework,

emphasizing the very elements of republicanism that Hariman argued are ‘‘of little

importance within contemporary political culture.’’46 Part of cultivating the republi-

can sense of common good, Hariman summarized, is utilizing ‘‘specific practices of

cultural memory,’’ including ‘‘the veneration of the dead orator and recollection of

great speeches’’ as the focus of communal remembrance.47 Obama’s announcement

address is not only carefully grafted onto the physical and rhetorical presence of

Lincoln’s 1858 ‘‘House Divided’’ oration but also takes deliberate steps to reconstruct

an appeal to American history that reinforces this elite republican strategy. Lincoln is

a key rhetorical device to translate a sense of political virtue within the announce-

ment speech. Obama’s use of history is not a flat stream of facts but is instead an

appeal to public memory sustained in rhetoric.48 As contemporary critics have noted,

public or cultural memory is a textual performance and an essential dimension of

conveying the republican virtues of the common good. Understanding the relevance

of Obama’s invocation of history is essential to understanding how the past is made

relevant within his situational constraints. Moving Lincoln into the political limelight

is a purposeful expression of what Kendall Phillips has called the ‘‘publicness of

memory’’ or the ‘‘fragmentary, mutable, and always fleeting’’ sense by which a

collective sense of the past functions in a situational context.49 Remembering Lincoln

is a familiar practice in American public address. As Merrill Peterson has demonstrated,

at least five distinctive Lincoln tropes—‘‘Savior of the Union,’’ ‘‘Great Emancipator,’’

‘‘Man of the People,’’ ‘‘First American,’’ and ‘‘Self-Made Man’’—resonate in the

American consciousness.50 Obama’s Lincoln is different and reflects his deliberate

combination of ‘‘vernacular’’ and ‘‘elite’’ frameworks that define ‘‘change.’’

In addition to maintaining the ‘‘elite’’ republican interest in cultural memory,

Obama’s announcement speech also includes an unexpected emphasis toward rhe-

torical performance itself as the basis for good governance. ‘‘In the republican mind,’’

Hariman has noted, ‘‘persuasion is the essence of politics, rhetorical virtuosity is the

surest sign of political acumen, and public speaking is the master art.’’51 To be pol-

itically adept is to be rhetorical. Obama’s announcement address reflects this basis of

the republican sensibility by privileging speech as the basis by which leaders are eval-

uated. While the nameless elites are the object of condemnation, a political leader—such as Obama—can legitimately rise to power through the effective use of oratory.

This appeal marks a contrast to other conceptions of leadership. For instance, Leroy

Dorsey has defined rhetorical leadership as something that is enacted, or a ‘‘process

of discovering, articulating, and sharing the available means of influence in order to

motivate agents in a particular situation.’’52 Awareness of the ‘‘social and political

landscape,’’ furthermore, enables a leader to ‘‘craft the appropriate expression of their


character as a symbol for overcoming those troubles.’’53 As David Zarefsky has

elaborated, ‘‘Presidents lead by giving voice to a view of the world that offers audi-

ences different and better ways of seeing their own situation.’’54 While some theories

of leadership suppose its practice lies with decision making, Obama’s debut of change

appeals to leadership defined by wrestling influence from political elites, tapping

into the cultural memory of Lincoln, and framing political leadership and oratorical

practice as one in the same.

Barack Obama’s announcement address is arranged around a sense of growth,

evolution, and expansion. He begins by reviewing his political biography in Illinois

then transitions from the official announcement to a litany of national problems

and their ideal solutions. Finally, he concludes with the promise of remaking citizens’

political experience with a ‘‘new birth of freedom on this earth.’’ To support my

primary thesis of the speech, however, I proceed by analyzing the text thematically

rather than chronologically. Obama’s republican framework supports a definition

of change that addresses his situational constraints. Change is comprised of three

traits informed by different strands of republican public philosophy: the expansion

of collective freedom, the involvement of citizens in the political process, and

leadership based on oratory.

Change Defined

In order to clarify the precise components of change, Obama’s announcement

speech features a memorable overview of how the national practice of change has

been exercised in the past. ‘‘The genius of our founders is that they designed a system

of government than can be changed,’’ he begins, ‘‘and we should take heart, because

we’ve changed this country before.’’

In the face of tyranny, a band of patriots brought an Empire to its knees. In the faceof secession, we unified a nation and set the captives free. In the face of Depression,we put people back to work and lifted millions out of poverty. We welcomedimmigrants to our shores, we opened railroads to the west, we landed a manon the moon, and we heard a King’s call to let justice roll down like waters, andrighteousness like a mighty stream. We’ve done this before.55

This initial definition of change carries listeners through crises past and constructs a

representation of a larger process of change by which results were achieved. Obama

combines major shifts from military, legislative, and public protests alike, crediting all

under the foundational ‘‘system of government’’ adopted by the founders. The three

epochs that begin this quote recount transitions in American public policy when the

inequality of the ‘‘colonial social order’’ was ‘‘made illegitimate,’’ when the ‘‘principle

of national citizenship’’ under law was spread to Americans ‘‘regardless of race,’’ and

when the notion of ‘‘economic security’’ became a ‘‘political condition of personal

freedom.’’56 Each expansion of freedom carries implications for a collective

well-being, made obvious in Obama’s reference to setting ‘‘the captives free’’ and

the ‘‘millions’’ lifted out of poverty. Further, Obama’s initial definition of change


is informed by remembering the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the Great

Depression as collective efforts, without specific mention of great leaders or the indi-

vidual accomplishments of Washington, Lincoln, or Roosevelt. This is a collective

history of expanding collective freedom that—consistent with a vernacular republi-

can framework—hones attention on new opportunities for the oppressed.57

Not every element of Obama’s historical overview describes a clear sense of expand-

ing collective freedom, however. References to ‘‘welcoming immigrants to our shores’’

and ‘‘building railroads to the west’’ cannot be pinned to a declarative document or

pivotal moment. Instead, these references note the nebulous mantras of collective

opportunity of industrial growth and expansion. As Gordon S. Wood has noted,

early precepts of republicanism during the American Revolution were defined in

part through ‘‘equality of opportunity’’ and ‘‘equality of condition,’’ each of which

considered social distinctions in divergent manners.58 Obama’s inclusion of equal

opportunity and acceptance helps solidify the primary basis of what change means

as constituted in the expansion of collective freedom. Final references of this section

to the American moon landing and King’s ‘‘I Have a Dream’’ oration each continue

the trend of collective participation (‘‘we landed’’ and ‘‘we heard’’) but do not

illuminate collective freedom in the same manner. While the moon landing might

be considered a moment of national pride, it resides more with ingenuity and persever-

ance than freedom. While the Civil Rights Movement was no doubt a great expansion

of collective rights for black Americans, Obama places the emphasis of the event on

King’s speech and the national will to listen. These final two components are seemingly

displaced. Both play a crucial role, however, in rounding out Obama’s definition

of change, and I will attend to their importance in a later part of this analysis.

In addition to framing American history through a republican expansion of

collective freedom, Obama also nurtures an appeal for change in the future. What

does the new expansion of change mean in 2007? As mentioned earlier, Obama

frames his candidacy as the antidote to exclusionary politics, a foe accentuated in

the opening of the address as the process of special interests and cronyism that has

‘‘shut you out, and told you to settle.’’ The new chapter of change is the campaign.

Obama’s candidacy is remarkable not for the chance to be the first African American

president but as a representative symbol of civic involvement. ‘‘This campaign has

to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense of common

purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of

voices calling for change,’’ he intones.59 Change in the twenty-first century is more

traditional than radical; it is a return to political involvement from the anonymous

forces of obstruction. It is the campaign—not Obama—that is ‘‘the vehicle,’’ he

suggests, ‘‘of your hopes and your dreams.’’60 Without the collective engagement of

a republican philosophy, freedom is an empty prospect. It is no surprise, then,

that the second key component of Obama’s change is the cultivation of public

participation in the electoral process, a point of emphasis that alters the conventional

status of Lincoln as a key of cultural memory.

Obama’s sense of change follows the republican tradition of privileging the collec-

tive efforts of the populace to affect policy. He underscores this principle early in the


text while recounting his political biography, noting how his time as a community

organizer in Chicago taught him that ‘‘our cherished rights of liberty and equality

depend on the active participation of an awakened electorate.’’61 Collective freedom

requires collective work, or, as Robert Bellah et al. argued, ‘‘Political equality can only

be effective in a republic where in the citizens actually participate.’’62 Asserting one’s

own understanding of participation as a civic virtue is one strategy. Carving out

a history of the practice, however, proves more effective in providing a sense of impor-

tance to the practice. For this task, Obama grounds his emphasis on republican political

participation in part on a cultural memory of Abraham Lincoln befitting the occasion.

Tethered neither to ideology or party, the public memory of Lincoln has been

ethereal, rooted and shaped only by repeated and sometimes divergent invocations.

While the exterior of Obama’s announcement speech seems to exalt Lincoln’s iconic

character, the interior treatment is far more subdued. The result, however, is a pur-

poseful crafting of a republican Lincoln and a model of political excellence forged in

cultural memory. Lincoln’s example, Obama claims, is proof that change is feasible.

First, Obama recounts the principles of civic participation, claiming the nation’s

‘‘unyielding faith’’ is ‘‘that in the face of impossible odds people who love their

country can change it.’’63 Next, he roots this claim with an unconventional telling

of Lincoln’s story. ‘‘That’s what Abraham Lincoln understood,’’ he continues, ‘‘He

had his doubts, he had his defeats. He had his skeptics.’’64 Despite this, Lincoln

succeeded in making change, but not on his own merits: ‘‘It was because of the

millions who rallied to his cause that we are no longer divided, North and South,

slave and freed. It is because the men and women of every race, from every walk

of life, continued to march toward freedom long after Lincoln was laid to rest, that

today we have a chance to face the challenges of this millennium together, as one

people—as Americans.’’65

Imbued with the republican virtue of change through public involvement,

Obama’s Lincoln cannot be the sole agent of his political accomplishments. In the

midst of an occasion largely defined in symbolic proximity to Lincoln, Obama elides

references to the Great Emancipator or Savior of the Union, focusing instead on ‘‘the

millions who rallied to his cause’’ to define the effect of change and the expansion of

collective freedom. We are witness not only to a cultural memory taking form but

also to a recollection of roles based on communication: Citizens were listeners taking

Lincoln’s cue; an engaged electorate beyond Lincoln’s power achieved what seemed

impossible. This shape of Lincoln allows Obama to acknowledge the centrality of

African Americans to the story of change, but in a way that is not exclusive to race,

gender, or time itself. ‘‘Lincoln’s cause’’ is worthy of admiration, but the agency for

emancipation in the longitudinal sense is derived from a republican virtue of citizens

working to expand the collective well-being of the populace. In an essay published

during his brief time as a U.S. Senator, Obama praised Lincoln while insisting a per-

sonal interest with ‘‘the man and not the icon,’’ noting he could not ‘‘swallow whole

the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator,’’ citing his awareness of the limitations

of the Emancipation Proclamation and his views as a ‘‘civil rights lawyer and

as an African-American.’’66 Obama lauded Lincoln’s political skill, specifically, praising


his ability in ‘‘governing a house divided.’’67 When invoking such rich memory for

the occasion of his presidential announcement, Obama hones the issue of rights

expansion as an important historical marker for African American freedom, but

one that translates the memory to be applicable to all and, even more, achieved

because of all.

Obama’s announcement address introduces a new Lincoln apart from those

mentioned in Peterson’s archetypes: a figure who is steadfast and enduring, but

whose primary achievement was his ability to inspire. This memory dispenses with

traditional images of the Great Emancipator or Savior of the Union, both of which

position Lincoln as a heroic individual. Obama’s speech crafts a new shape to an

old memory, Lincoln the Orator: an agent whose words meld a multitude of interests

toward collective betterment. Under this republican-infused energy, Lincoln’s

accomplishments were not his alone.68

Obama’s collectivist ethos, once established in the cultural memory of Lincoln,

saturates later portions of the text. In forging a list of proposals for future policy,

he emphasizes the pronouns ‘‘us’’ and ‘‘we,’’ while utilizing anaphora with the phrase

‘‘Let us be the generation,’’ starting each new prospect with an echo of John F.

Kennedy’s promise from his inaugural address, ‘‘Let us begin.’’ Like Lincoln,

Obama’s presence as leader of these proposals is minimal. With only slight acknowl-

edgement of his legislative contribution to Congressional ethics reform and a brief

focus on his early opposition to the war against Iraq, he instead emphasizes the

possibilities of collective work directed toward domestic goals like health care,

employment, and energy policy. The promise of collaborative participation is so

strong that Obama briefly disappears within the words of his own speech. ‘‘Let us

be the generation that says we will have universal health care in America by the

end of the next president’s first term,’’ he proclaims, ‘‘We can do that.’’69 Who is

the president? Who is the leader? Obama’s republican framework—a blend of

remembering Lincoln and projecting toward the future—has all but melded the work

of leader and public into one: Obama’s commitment to health care reform is experi-

enced from the audience’s point of view, a promise for change that places power in

the work of the masses, or ‘‘what we can do together.’’70 In isolation lies political

death; in collective work lies political opportunity. When the achievements of

expansive collective freedom grow from public participation, the natural question

remains: What happens to leadership? In this, the final component of Obama’s

philosophy of change from the republican framework, the role of leader emerges

within the role of the orator emphasized in Ciceronian republicanism.

Hariman’s observation that in ‘‘the republican mind, persuasion is the essence of

politics . . . and public speaking is the master art’’ is evident in Obama’s announce-

ment speech insomuch as oratory is privileged as the nexus of political leadership.71

Obama’s discursive positioning of change is the fulfillment of communication

between leader and populace. Unlike speech in ‘‘vernacular’’ republicanism that

‘‘functions as the medium of the political process—nothing more or less,‘‘72 Obama’s

change in the announcement speech positions rhetoric as the central component

of political leadership. Again, Hariman’s observations are instructive: Ciceronian


republicanism is a style ‘‘endangered by silence, for without the continuing dis-

cussion of public duties, virtue could wane, citizens become distracted, forces of

change gather strength as political energies dissipate.’’73 Obama’s change relies on

both the speechifying of leaders and the energies of the electorate. We may now

return to the original narrative arc of change introduced at the outset of this analysis

and glean a clearer sense of how the moon landing and King’s ‘‘I Have a Dream’’ ora-

tion fit into the principles of collective freedom and opportunity. Obama accented

the act of hearingKing’s ‘‘call’’ for change, meaning the public met the leader’s direction.

Without reading too much into the text, the same conclusion may be presented on

the moon landing, another accomplishment Obama frames as a collective effort. In

his concession speech following the New Hampshire primary, Obama substituted his

focus of ‘‘change’’ with the rejoinder, ‘‘Yes we can,’’ whist maintaining a similar,

expanded narrative through America’s past struggles, balancing the popular efforts of

‘‘slaves and abolitionists’’ and ‘‘workers who organized,’’ with the ‘‘president who chose

the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed

the way to the promised land.’’74 Public efforts are met—and balanced—with the

inspiration and direction of leaders as speakers, with Kennedy credited with striving

to the moon the same way King is credited with striving for social and political equality

on the basis of race. Though less clear in the announcement speech, Kennedy and King

both used words to inspire, to lead, and to set the example for change.75

If Kennedy’s presence as rhetorical leader lacks precise form in the announcement

address, the emphasis on linguistic leadership in other portions of the text is unde-

niable. None is more important, however, than the memory of Lincoln. Lincoln’s

involvement in expanding collective freedom came through ‘‘The millions who rallied

to his cause.’’ However, Lincoln’s role, as mentioned earlier, is more nuanced as

a model of change. Positioning Lincoln as the proof and potential of change, Obama

reconstructs the cultural memory of suffrage: ‘‘That’s what Abraham Lincoln under-

stood. He had his doubts. He had his defeats. He had his skeptics, he had his setbacks.

But through his will and his words, he moved a nation and helped free a people.’’76

Obama’s cultivation of collective participation in politics from the memory of Lincoln

also prompts an appreciation for Lincoln the Orator, whose role as communicator

shows forethought, direction, and resilience by utilizing the arsenal of speech.

Obama’s emphasis on change achieved through speech is evident in his past recollec-

tion of Lincoln as well as his primary concerns with the present. The exigence of change

introduced at the beginning of the speech is that the injustice of the political process has

‘‘shut you out,’’ and even taken on the human trait of speech in having ‘‘told you to

settle.’’77 Reminding his audience of mishandled policies of the previous administration

reverses the traits of leadership defined previously in the speech. A failure of leadership

is also a failure of communication. ‘‘We know the challenges,’’ Obama says, turning

to present-day concerns, ‘‘we’ve talked about them for years.’’ In more elaborate terms,

the importance of speech by way of its failure grows in fruition:

For the last six years, we’ve been told that our mounting debts don’t matter, we’vebeen told that the anxiety Americans feel about rising health care costs and stagnantwages are an illusion, we’ve been told that climate change is a hoax, and that tough


talk and ill-conceived war can replace diplomacy, and strategy, and foresight. Andwhen all else fails, when Katrina happens, or the death toll in Iraq mounts, we’vebeen told that our crises are somebody else’s fault. We’re distracted from our realfailures and told to blame the other party, or gay people, or immigrants.78

George W. Bush’s tenure, unidentified by name but unmistakable by time and topic,

is defined through events following the 2004 election as an unfulfilled model of

leadership beckoning the need for ‘‘change.’’ Meaningless endeavors and dishonest

messages are matched only by the tone of not communicating well to the public.

Like the ‘‘politics’’ of the text’s introduction, Bush’s primary flaw is that he speaks

falsely from a position of leadership, adding a major rub to Obama’s philosophy

of leaders motivating positive action through their discourse. Speech, through the

positive examples of Kennedy, King, Lincoln, as well as the negative example of Bush,

continues to permeate Obama’s republican conception of leadership. To speak well

as president is not a means to an end: Speech is part of leadership and an end in itself.

Or, in J. G. A. Pocock’s description, Obama’s change privileges the ‘‘verbalization

as an act or performance—indeed, an assertion of power—in its own right.’’79

As a candidate suspected of being too inexperienced or ‘‘green’’ to be president, the

final component of change answers key arguments addressed around the time of the

announcement speech as to Obama’s overall preparedness. For Obama, leadership is

something observable in examples past and present. Even more, by including effective

speech as a condition for leadership, Obama not only appeals to quiet his critics but also

selects a prerequisite that he has demonstrated in the past and present situations. Far

from being inexperienced, Obama’s preparedness is well proven through his established

ability to inspire. Cicero would have approved; the politician leads through speech.

This brand of rhetorical leadership differs from forms past. As David Zarefsky has

noted, the ability to utilize a shared past has been a tool in constructing presidential

leadership beyond the Constitutional requirements of the office. Presidents, he con-

tinues, appeal through ‘‘the rhetorical reconstruction of history in order to contextua-

lize present issues in a historical trajectory.’’80 As memory is introduced to the present,

its application frames ‘‘the context in which the audiences see themselves in their own

time.’’81 Lincoln is imagined in a way that turns Obama’s potential weaknesses

into political strengths. Obama forges what Howard Schuman calls a ‘‘looking-glass

perception’’ of the past, or what Schwartz elaborates as the ‘‘tendency to see our

own thoughts and values in others,’’ thus revisiting the meaning of the past ‘‘while

creating the perception that no change has occurred.’’82 Obama’s translation of

leadership is a decentered approach that focuses on the energy of speech not merely

as a distraction from policy leadership but as a prerequisite for effectively achieving it.83

All three principles of Obama’s ‘‘change’’—the expansion of collective freedom,

the participation of citizens in the political process, and the importance of speech

as the basis for political leadership—converge in crescendo at the conclusion of

the announcement and the final appearance of Lincoln:

By ourselves, this change will not happen. Divided, we are bound to fail. But the lifeof a tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer tells us a different future is possible.


He tells us that there is power in words. He tells us there is power in conviction. Thatbeneath all the differences of race and region, faith and station, we are one people.He tells us there is power in hope. As Lincoln organized the forces arrayed againstslavery, he was heard to say this: ‘‘Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements,we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought to battle through.’’ Thatis our purpose here today. That’s why I’m in this race. Not just to hold an office, butto gather with you to transform a nation.84

Obama’s veneration of Lincoln’s ‘‘House Divided’’ speech and Lincoln’s role

in history requires that he appropriate and also abandon the original intention of

Lincoln’s words. In this republican vision of change, Lincoln’s cause was expanding

freedom through the varied political interests of the Republican Party, an achieve-

ment born from collective cooperation and Lincoln’s leadership through ‘‘words’’

and ‘‘conviction.’’ Gone are Lincoln’s original partisan tone85 and reference to

a ‘‘disciplined, proud and pampered enemy.’’86 By reversing the temporal flow,

Obama casts Lincoln in the philosophy of change: While Lincoln spoke to an

occasion in the present recalling the recent emergence of the Republican Party against

‘‘the formidable slave power,’’87 Obama speaks to the present, using Lincoln’s words

as a model for the future: ‘‘That’s our purpose here today,’’ he clearly states. Within

the text’s emphasis on political unrest, the memory of Lincoln moves Obama beyond

mere electoral-prospect and into a larger frame wherein his campaign represents the

genesis of reconstituting the political interests of the twenty-first century. It is also

appropriately the next phase of expanding collective freedom through ‘‘change.’’

As Lincoln the Orator emerges as the dominant memory in Obama’s announcement

speech, it is the candidate himself who undergoes a discursive alteration and

transition: from inexperienced outsider to accomplished leader, and a justifiably

rhetorical candidate required for the moment.

Conclusion

Barack Obama’s presidential announcement speech introduced a discursive defi-

nition of change that fit the situational constraints of the early 2008 campaign.

Remembrance of Lincoln was both a strategy for Obama to historically define change

and to draw favorable comparisons to his qualities of leadership. Divided by history,

these are two of a kind. Responding to claims of being unprepared for office,

Obama’s Lincoln is strategically imagined as a figure motivating public participation

in the political process. The republican memory of Lincoln allows Obama to craft

a historical analogy while suppressing traits or expectations that might overshadow

Obama’s abilities and known quantities. For example, Obama’s Lincoln hovers over

a pre-presidential space (both physical and temporal) in the ‘‘House Divided’’ speech

but possesses qualities that, when melded with the activities of engaged citizens,

eventually yield the ‘‘change’’ attributed to Lincoln’s presidency. Lincoln’s relevant

tools to overcome those challenges are, in kind, limited to Obama’s known qualities.

Indeed, by crafting a definition of change predicated on public involvement and

rhetorical inspiration, Obama ensured at the outset that any future victory or setback


would be shared together. Under Obama’s original definition of ‘‘change,’’ his role

as advocate and campaigner fulfill the expectations of rhetorical leadership advanced

in the 2007 announcement speech.

In response to cultural uncertainties in electing the nation’s first African American

president, Obama’s Lincoln fulfills a similar need. Obama’s change stressed the

expansion collective freedom as a renewed involvement of citizens in the political

process. Explaining this change, however, is a translation of time and topic. While

Obama’s primary focus of the text revolves around political unrest and wrestling

power from elite circles of influence, our understanding of the solution to the

problem comes primarily from a memory of Lincoln expanding freedom to African

Americans with the aid of public action. Obama’s race becomes relevant and

addressed in the speech only by how he simultaneously remembers Lincoln’s advance

of African American freedom in the application to a larger political context. Lincoln’s

presence defies composite, political, and racial assumptions to be applicable to all.

In turn, Obama’s trailblazing role as an African American candidate campaigning

for an office of a monolithic racial history is also applicable to all, as its primary

motive rests in strategically dispensing with allegiances to party and demographics,

and focusing instead on political unrest informed through the example of racial

freedom. Acknowledging the importance of the former comes through reverence

to the latter.

As Murphy argued in his analysis of Obama’s biblical invocations, Obama’s strat-

egy was largely one of ‘‘assuring supporters that even the unlikely overcame. They did

so by joining together and, as powerless as they seemed at first, they moved the arc of

history.’’88 Just as Murphy argued Obama’s choice to extend ‘‘the Exodus tradition

into the Promised Land, declining to play Moses and embodying Joshua’’ was ulti-

mately a keen rhetorical choice,89 this essay presages Obama’s move to the biblical

tradition in certain contexts by highlighting strategies derived from the republican

tradition utilized to address prevalent constraints of his entrance to the campaign.

Though the braided strands of republican philosophy and memory of Lincoln that

inform Obama’s appeals are rich with rhetorical strategy, the 2007 announcement

speech ultimately represents a starting point for appeals that soon gave way to more

expansive political visions. His victory speech following the Iowa caucuses, for

example, introduced the equally important complement of ‘‘hope’’ to ‘‘change’’ while

maintaining the same narrative arc through national history, recalling the past efforts

of ‘‘colonists’’ who ‘‘[rose] up against an empire,’’ ‘‘the greatest of generations to free

a continent and heal a nation,’’ and ‘‘young women and young men to sit at lunch

counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for free-

dom’s cause.’’90 Obama’s speech following the New Hampshire primary brought a

new face of change again, this time with the phrase, ‘‘Yes, we can.’’ Again, the essence

of change was expanded to include ‘‘slaves and abolitionists,’’ ‘‘immigrants’’ who

‘‘struck out from distant shores,’’ and ‘‘workers who organized, women who reached

for the ballot.’’91 Finally, coming full circle from candidate to presumptive nominee,

Obama returned to the expansive evolution of change in his address in Saint Paul,

Minnesota. After critiquing Senator John McCain by listing, in the style of anaphora,


a train of policy positions prefaced with the charge ‘‘It’s not change,’’ Obama pro-

vides a lasting image of change born from challenge:

So it was for that band of patriots who declared in a Philadelphia hall the formationof a more perfect union, and for all those who gave on the fields of Gettysburg andAntietam their last full measure of devotion to save that same union. So it was forthe greatest generation that conquered fear itself, and liberated a continent fromtyranny, and made this country home to untold opportunity and prosperity. Soit was for the workers who stood out on the picket lines, the women who shatteredglass ceilings, the children who braved a Selma bridge for freedom’s cause. So it hasbeen for every generation that faced down the greatest challenges and the mostimprobable odds to leave their children a world that’s better and kinder and morejust. And so it must be for us.92

One step closer to securing his party’s nomination, Obama’s ‘‘change’’ morphed into a

collective sense of expanding freedom and opportunity and resided almost exclusively

with the participation of citizens in their own political life. Gone are overt references

to Lincoln, or the ‘‘elite’’ republican emphasis on speech as the means of defining

and evaluating credentials for political leadership. Indeed, the memory of Lincoln was

an essential, conciliatory, and safe public memory to introduce Obama’s campaign

but soon gave way to a recurring narrative arc that both privileged the activities of

engaged and dispossessed citizens past and also allowed Obama to expand the history

of change to resonate with various audiences addressed throughout the campaign.93

Within this framework, Obama’s attempt to renegotiate presumptions of leader-

ship and to broaden the historical lineage of change invites further consideration.

Rhetorical scholars should investigate the broader circulation of Obama’s unconven-

tional conception of rhetorical leadership, particularly among candidates perceived as

unseasoned or otherwise unconventional. Moreover, scholars should consider how

this rhetoric of change might create self-imposed constraints when translated to

the construction and implementation of public policy as president. Finally, observers

may also uncover the opportunities and limitations of combining ‘‘elite’’ and

‘‘vernacular’’ republican frameworks to overcome cultural hurdles through the

strategic use of public memory. In this, rhetors continue the task of reconstituting

public and political identities—a rich process always open to change.

Notes

[1] Michael Grunwald, ‘‘Barack Obama Elected 44th President in Landslide for Change,’’ Time,

November 4, 2008, http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1856560,00.html.

[2] Kate Kenski, Bruce W. Hardy, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, The Obama Victory: How

Media, Money, and Message Shaped the 2008 Campaign (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2010), 35; Coe and Reitzes call ‘‘change’’ Obama’s ‘‘preferred thematic appeal’’ across two

years of stump speeches. See Kevin Coe and Michael Reitzes, ‘‘Obama on the Stump: Deter-

minants of a Rhetorical Approach,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 40, no. 3 (2010): 401.

[3] Barack Obama, ‘‘Official Announcement of Candidacy for U.S. President,’’ http://www.

americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barackobamacandidacyforpresident.htm.

[4] Mark Murray, ‘‘ ‘Rock Star’ Obama in the Land of Lincoln,’’ NBC News, February 12, 2007,

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/17086451/#.UwjXGf1te2w; Jennifer Hunter, ‘‘Obama Dares to


Make the Most of Comparisons,’’ The Chicago Sun-Times, February 9, 2014, http://

www.suntimes.com/news/250350,CST-NWS-obama09.article.

[5] At a fundraiser in April 2012, Obama proclaimed, ‘‘change is the health care reform we

passed,’’ in addition to other key legislative accomplishments. See ‘‘Obama Delivers

Remarks at a Campaign Fundraiser in Washington,’’ The Washington Post, April 27,

2012, http://projects.washingtonpost.com/obama-speeches/speech/996.

[6] Relevant studies on Obama’s rhetorical discourse include the following: David A. Frank and

Mark Lawrence McPhail, ‘‘Barack Obama’s Address to the 2004 Democratic National Con-

vention: Trauma, Compromise, Consilience, and the (Im)possibility of Racial Reconcili-

ation,’’ Rhetoric & Public Affairs 8, no. 4 (2005): 571–594; Robert C. Rowland and John

M. Jones, ‘‘Recasting the American Dream and American Politics: Barack Obama’s Keynote

Address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention,’’Quarterly Journal of Speech 94, no. 4.

(2007): 425–448; Robert E. Terrill, ‘‘Unity and Duality in Barack Obama’s ‘A More Perfect

Union,’’’ Quarterly Journal of Speech 95, no. 4 (2009): 363–386; James Darsey, ‘‘Barack

Obama and America’s Journey,’’ Southern Communication Journal 74 (January–March

2009): 88–103; David A. Frank, ‘‘The Prophetic Voice and the Face of the Other in Barack

Obama’s ‘A More Perfect Union’ Address, March 18, 2008,’’ Rhetoric & Public Affairs 12

(2009): 167–194; John M. Murphy, ‘‘Barack Obama, the Exodus Tradition, and the Joshua

Generation,’’Quarterly Journal of Speech 97 (2011): 387–410; Kevin Coe andMichael Reitzes,

‘‘Obama on the Stump: Determinants of a Rhetorical Approach,’’ Presidential Studies Quar-

terly 40, no. 3 (2010): 391–413; the special issue of Rhetoric & Public Affairs 14, no. 4 (2011)

offers the following analyses on speeches from Obama’s first term as president: David A.

Frank, ‘‘Obama’s Rhetorical Signature: Cosmopolitan Civil Religion in the Presidential

Inaugural Address, January 20, 2009,’’ 605–630; Ronald C. Arnett, ‘‘Civic Rhetoric-Meeting

the Communal Interplay of the Provincial and the Cosmopolitan: Barack Obama’s Notre

Dame Speech, May 17, 2009,’’ 631–671; Mark McPhail and Roger McPhail, ‘‘(E)raced Men:

Complicity and Responsibility in the Rhetorics of Barack Obama,’’ 673–691; Robert C.

Rowland, ‘‘Barack Obama and the Revitalization of Public Reason,’’ 693–725; Robert L. Ivie,

‘‘Obama at West Point: A Study in Ambiguity of Purpose,’’ 727–759; Robert E. Terrill, ‘‘An

Uneasy Peace: Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize Lecture,’’ 761–779; For Obama’s use of

Lincoln comparisons, see David Zarefsky, ‘‘Obama’s Lincoln: The Uses of Argument from

Historical Analogy,’’ in The Functions of Argument and Social Context (Conference

Proceedings of the Sixteenth SCA=AFA Conference on Argumentation, 2009), ed. Dennis

Gouran (Washington, DC: National Communication Association, 2010), 572–578.

[7] Jennifer R. Mercieca and James Arnt Aune, ‘‘A Vernacular Republican Rhetoric: William

Manning’s Key of Libberty,’’ Quarterly Journal of Speech 91 (May 2005): 119–143, especially

135–139.

[8] Frank, ‘‘Obama’s Rhetorical Signature,’’ 615.

[9] Evan Thomas and Newsweek, ‘‘A Long Time Coming’’: The Inspiring, Combative 2008

Campaign and the Historic Election of Barack Obama (New York: Public Affairs, 2009), 6.

[10] Rowland and Jones, ‘‘Recasting the American Dream,’’ 442.

[11] Coe and Reitzes, ‘‘Obama on the Stump,’’ 392.

[12] William Kristol, ‘‘In 2008 It’s Ronald Reagan Versus Bobby Kennedy,’’ Time, March 29,

2007, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1604937,00.html.

[13] Barack Obama, ‘‘Senator Obama’s Opening Statement for Floor Debate on Ethics Reform,’’

March 7, 2006, http://obamaspeeches.com/055-Debate-on-Ethics-Reform-Obama-Speech.htm.

[14] Barack Obama, ‘‘Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Take Back America,’’ June 14, 2006,

http://obama’sentate.gov/speech/060614-remarks_of_senator_barack_obama_take_back_

america.

[15] Amanda Ripley, ‘‘Obama’s Ascent,’’ Time, November 15, 2004, http://content.time.com/

time/magazine/article/0,9171,750742,00.html.


[16] Obama’s lack of experience was seen as a positive good by Joe Klein. See Klein, ‘‘Barack

Obama Isn’t Not Running For President,’’ Time, June 5, 2006, 26.

[17] Murphy, ‘‘Barack Obama, The Exodus Tradition,’’ 389.

[18] Anne E. Kornblut, ‘‘Obama Confronts ‘Outsider’ Dilemma: How to Win Without Losing

His Identity,’’ Washington Post, February 5, 2007, A01; Jeffrey M. Jones, ‘‘Perceived Experi-

ence Major Asset for Clinton, McCain in 2008 Race,’’ Gallup News Service, February 16,

2007, http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Perceived+Experience+Major+Asset+for+Clinton,+

McCain+in+2008+Race%3B...-a0162458344.

[19] Jonathan Alter, ‘‘Is America Ready for Hillary or Obama?,’’ Newsweek, December 25, 2006–

January 1, 2007, para. 8; Also, consider the blunt assessment of Obama’s situation in Judy

Keen, ‘‘The Big Question About Barack Obama: Does He Have Enough Experience to Be

President?,’’ USA Today, January 17, 2007, A1.


[21] Of respondents polled, the primary reason for not voting for Obama was his lack of

experience; less than one tenth of those polled at the time of Obama’s announcement

speech voiced a proclivity to vote for Obama because of his race, while even less (4%)

voiced hesitation to support Obama because of race. PEW Research Center for the People

and the Press, ‘‘As Campaign Moves Into High Gear, Voters Remains in Neutral,’’ February

23, 2007, http://www.people-press.org/2007/02/23/voters-remain-in-neutral-as-presidential-

campaign-moves-into-high-gear/.

[22] Thomas, A Long Time Coming, 57.

[23] Celeste Michelle Condit and John Louis Lucaites, Crafting Equality: America’s Anglo-African

Word (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1993), 211.

[24] Ibid., 213.

[25] Gwen Ifill, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama (New York and London:

Doubleday, 2009), 53.

[26] Ron Walters, ‘‘Barack Obama and the Politics of Blackness,’’ Journal of Black Studies 38, no.

1 (2007): 19.

[27] Darsey, ‘‘Barack Obama and America’s Journey,’’ 97.

[28] Lydia Saad, ‘‘Clinton Eclipses Obama and Edwards on Leadership,’’ Gallup News Service,

January 31, 2007, http://www.gallup.com/poll/26332/Clinton-Eclipses-Obama-Edwards-

Leadership.aspx; PEW Research Center for the People and the Press, ‘‘As Campaign Moves

Into High Gear, Voters Remain in Neutral,’’ February 23, 2007, http://www.people-

press.org/2007/02/23/voters-remain-in-neutral-as-presidential-campaign-moves-into-high-

gear/.

[29] Seven months after Obama’s announcement speech, public polling indicated that voters

privileged ‘‘change’’ to ‘‘experience’’ for viable candidates. See Jeffrey M. Jones, ‘‘Democrats

Express Decided Preference for Change Over Experience: Seventy-Three Percent Favor

Presidential Candidate Who Strongly Desires to Change Washington,’’ Gallup News Service,

September 4, 2007, http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Democrats+Express+Decided+Preferen-

ce+for+Change+Over+Experience%3B...-a0168891495.

[30] See ‘‘Remarks at the New Hampshire Democratic Party 100 Club Dinner in Milford,’’

January 4, 2008, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/

index.php?pid=77084.

[31] The parody Web site Jib-Jab gave viewers a summary of the 2008 campaign by lampooning

Obama’s frequent use of the term. In the production, Obama rides a unicorn across a rain-

bow while proclaiming the benefits of ‘‘the change we must change to the change we hold

dear.’’ Jib-Jab, ‘‘Time for Some Campaignin’,’’ July 16, 2006, http://sendables.jibjab.com/

originals/time_for_some_campaignin.

[32] Michael Kinsley, ‘‘Stirred, Not Shaken,’’ New York Times, January 6, 2008, WK12, ProQuest

Historical Newspapers database.


[33] See Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: The

University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Stephen Browne, Jefferson’s Call For Nationhood:

The First Inaugural Address (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2003);

James Jasinski, ‘‘Rhetoric and Judgment in the Constitutional Ratification Debate of

1787–1788: An Exploration in the Relationship between Theory and Critical Practice,’’

Quarterly Journal of Speech 88 (1992): 197–218; Zoltan Vajda, ‘‘John C. Calhoun’s

Republicanism Revisited,’’ Rhetoric & Public Affairs 4 (2001): 433–457.

[34] John M. Murphy, ‘‘Civic Republicanism in the Modern Age: Adlai Stevenson in

the 1952 Presidential Campaign,’’ Quarterly Journal of Speech 80 (1994): 316.

[35] See Jennifer Mercieca, Founding Fictions (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press,

2010), 12–13.

[36] Michael Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy

(Cambridge, MA and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,

1996), 25–26.

[37] Robert Hariman, Political Style: The Artistry of Power (Chicago and London: The University

of Chicago Press, 1995), 96.

[38] Ibid., 96.

[39] Ibid., 129 and 107.

[40] Mercieca and Aune, ‘‘A Vernacular Republican Rhetoric,’’ 138.

[41] Ibid., 135.

[42] Ibid., 135.

[43] Obama,’’ Official Announcement.’’

[44] Ibid.

[45] Ibid.

[46] Hariman, The Political Style, 129.

[47] Ibid., 129.

[48] Barbie Zelizer, ‘‘Reading the Past Against the Grain: The Shape of Memory Studies,’’

Critical Studies in Mass Communication 12 (1995): 216.

[49] Kendall R. Phillips, ‘‘Introduction,’’ in Framing Public Memory, ed. Kendall R. Phillips

(Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2004), 6–7.

[50] Merrill Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994),

27–35.

[51] Hariman, The Political Style, 102.

[52] Leroy Dorsey, ‘‘The President as Rhetorical Leader,’’ in The Presidency and Rhetorical

Leadership, ed. Leroy Dorsey (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2002), 9.

[53] Ibid., 17.

[54] David Zarefsky, ‘‘Lincoln’s 1862 Annual Message: A Paradigm of Rhetorical Leadership,’’

Rhetoric & Public Affairs 3 (Spring 2000): 6.

[55] Barack Obama, ‘‘Official Announcement,’’ emphasis added.

[56] Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom (New York: Norton, 1998), 16, 97, 196 and 204.


[58] Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 70.

[59] Obama, ‘‘Official Announcement.’’

[60] Obama, ‘‘Official Announcement,’’ emphasis added.

[61] Ibid.

[62] Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M.

Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Collectivism in American Life, 2nd ed.

(Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: The University of California Press, 1996), 30.


[64] Ibid.

[65] Ibid.


[66] Barack Obama, ‘‘What I See in Lincoln’s Eyes,’’ Time, June 27, 2005.

[67] Ibid.

[68] Arguably, Lincoln the Orator is a more precise vision born from the broader archetype of

Lincoln that Peterson called the ‘‘Man of the People.’’ In Peterson’s words, the ‘‘Man of the

People’’ image ‘‘celebrated Lincoln’s faith in democracy, his shrewdness as a popular leader,

his uncanny reading of the public mind, and his ability to inspire trust in people.’’ These

traits are evident in Obama’s address, but his announcement address maintains a consistent

focus on Lincoln’s inspirational leadership through oratory. See Peterson, Lincoln in

American Memory, 31.


[70] Ibid.

[71] Hariman, Political Style, 102.


[73] Hariman, Political Style, 111.

[74] ‘‘Barack Obama’s New Hampshire Primary Speech,’’ New York Times, January 8, 2008,

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/us/politics/08text-obama.html?pagewanted=all.

[75] John F. Kennedy, ‘‘Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs,’’ May 25,

1961, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=8151.

[76] Obama, ‘‘Official Announcement,’’ emphasis added.

[77] Ibid.

[78] Ibid., emphasis added.

[79] J. G. A. Pocock, ‘‘Verbalizing a Political Act: Toward a Politics of Speech,’’ Political Theory 1

(1973): 30–31.

[80] David Zarefsky, ‘‘The Presidency Has Always Been a Place for Rhetorical Leadership,’’ in

The Presidency and Rhetorical Leadership, ed. Leroy Dorsey (College Station, TX: Texas

A&M University Press, 2002), 24 and 37.

[81] Ibid., 37.

[82] Barry Schwartz, Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory (Chicago:

The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 299.

[83] A well-known counterargument is found in Jeffrey K. Tulis, The Rhetorical Presidency

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).

[84] Barack Obama, ‘‘Official Announcement,’’ emphasis added.

[85] See Michael W. Pfau, ‘‘The House that Abe Built: The ‘House Divided’ Speech and

Republican Party Politics,’’ Rhetoric & Public Affairs 2 (1999): 634.

[86] Abraham Lincoln, ‘‘ ‘House Divided’ Speech in Springfield,’’ Speeches and Writings:

1859–1865 (New York: The Library of America, 1989), 434.

[87] Pfau, ‘‘The House that Abe Built,’’ 634.


[89] Ibid., 402.

[90] ‘‘Barack Obama’s Caucus Speech,’’ New York Times, January 3, 2008, http://www.nytimes.

com/2008/01/03/us/politics/03obama-transcript.html?pagewanted=all.

[91] ‘‘Barack Obama’s New Hampshire Primary Speech,’’ New York Times, January 8, 2008,

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/us/politics/08text-obama.-

html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

[92] ‘‘Obama’s Remarks in Saint Paul,’’ New York Times, June 3, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/

2008/06/03/us/politics/03text-obama.html?pagewanted=all.

[93] Obama returned to Lincoln in several campaign speeches during the 2008 contest, invoking

the sixteenth president on issues ranging from labor regulation, veteran affairs, to public

education. Though many of these comments were often cursory compared to the official

announcement speech, it is telling that Obama’s speech on election night in Grant Park

jumped past the antebellum memory of Lincoln to borrow a theme from the first inaugural


address in comments directed toward Republicans: ‘‘As Lincoln said to a nation far more

divided than ours, ‘We are not enemies, but friends . . . though passion may have strained it

must not break our bonds of affection.’ And to those Americans whose support I have yet

to earn—I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, and I need your help, and

I will be your President too.’’ Considering that Obama chose not to rely on Lincoln for

his Democratic National Convention address in Denver, readers might further question

how a memory of Lincoln carried multiple uses for Obama, particularly in contexts wherein

he stressed leadership and bipartisanship. Intending to strike the appropriate bipartisan

tone for the Grant Park speech, David Axelrod advised speechwriter Jon Favreau, ‘‘Figure

out a good Lincoln quote to bring it all together.’’ See Barack Obama, ‘‘Address in Chicago

Accepting Election as the 44th President of the United States,’’ November 4, 2008,

in The American Presidency Project, eds. Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, http://

www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=84750; Axelrod as quoted in Evan Thomas, ‘‘Obama

Looks Lincoln,’’ Newsweek, November 14, 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/obama-looks-

lincoln-85439.


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