Democratic Orators from JFK to Barack Obama

How do leading Democratic Party figures strive to communicate with and influence their audience? Why have some proven more successful than others in advancing their ideological arguments? How do orators seek to connect with different audiences in different settings such as the Senate, conventions and through the media? This thoroughly researched and highly readable collection comprehensively evaluates these questions as well as providing an extensive interrogation of the political and intellectual significance of oratory and rhetoric in the Democratic Party. Using the Aristotelian modes of persuasion ethos, pathos and logos it draws out commonalties and differences in how the rhetoric of Democratic Party politics has shifted since the 1960s. More broadly it evaluates the impact of leading orators upon American politics and argues that effective oratory remains a vital party of American political discourse.

Andrew S. Crines is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Liverpool and is co-editor of two volumes entitled Labour Orators from Bevan to Miliband and Conservative Orators from Baldwin to Cameron. He has published widely in leading national and international journals including Politics and Religion, Global Discourse, and Political Quarterly. He tweets at @AndrewCrines.

David S. Moon is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Bath. His research focuses on ideological conflict within political parties, post-structuralist theory, political rhetoric, and oratory. He has contributed book chapters to edited collections on oratory and social democratic politics, and published articles in academic journals including Politics, Public Policy and Administration and Subjectivity.

Robert Lehrman is a professor of public communication at the American University, Washington D.C., USA. He is a speechwriter for numerous Democratic Party figures and the author of The Political Speechwriter’s Companion .