John McCain Knows His Rhetoric! mmhmm.

Promoting Adoption

"In 1993, John McCain and his wife, Cindy, adopted a little girl from Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh. She has been a blessing to the McCain family and helped make adoption advocacy a personal issue for the Senator.

The McCain family experience is not unique; millions of families have had their lives transformed by the adoption of a child. As president, motivated by his personal experience, John McCain will seek ways to promote adoption as a first option for women struggling with a crisis pregnancy. In the past, he cosponsored legislation to prohibit discrimination against families with adopted children, to provide adoption education, and to permit tax deductions for qualified adoption expenses, as well as to remove barriers to interracial and inter-ethnic adoptions. "

Within this passage, the McCain campaign uses several rhetorical strategies and appeals to convince us, the voters, to check "yes" for Senator McCain. The first paragraph introduces us to a narration of the McCain family's adoption of their daughter. It is with this narration that the McCains are able to relate to the audience or at least other parents of adopted children and convince us that he cares deeply about the topic because he is an adoptive parent. This ultimately gives the appeal of ethos to the McCain campaign because he gives the audience a specific reason as to why adoption advocacy is important to him. Also used in the first paragraph is cause and effect. After the adoption of their daughter, John McCain found the process to be extremely important, enough so that he uses it as part of his campaign. It is assumed through this paragraph that the adoption of a child will change one's views to be the same as John McCain's-- that adoption should be the first choice among crisis pregancies.

The second paragraph focuses mostly on the appeal of pathos by generating the feeling of security among voters. An illustration is provided within the first sentence to make us Americans feel better about adoption, "The McCain family experience is not unique; millions of families have had their lives transformed by the adoption of a child." This sentence suggests that adoption is popular and the very best choice anyone could make because it changes lives and makes everything better. The conformity that is exhibited through our nation is illustrated here and is a good tactic for the McCain campaign because if many people think something is great, others will too, and everyone will be happy. The McCain campaign also uses pathos through the use of description in the passage. They describe to us how John McCain will target adoption and make it more convenient to women experiencing crisis pregnancies. Examples are also given as ways to ensure that adoptions will be better options for women such as tax deductions for adoption expenses and adoption education for those who are uninformed. These details provide pathos because people like to feel as if they know everything, and with this passage, it appears that the McCain campaign has given precise examples as to how adoption can be the very best option.

Opposing arguments are not directly addressed in John McCain's campaign passage on adoption, but in one statement we are able to see how his opposers may feel on the issue. "As president, motivated by his personal experience, John McCain will seek ways to promote adoption as a first option for women struggling with a crisis pregnancy." Within this statement, McCain's campaign uses the words "first option" meaning that there are other options not spoken of in the passage. Now, we all know about abortion, but it is not mentioned in the passage as if to give us the sense that to John McCain there is NO other option aside from adoption. It can easily be assumed that his opponents must agree or mention abortion in their campaign issues, but it is made perfectly clear in this statement that John McCain believes in no other option besides adoption and he will make it the first choice among us voters.