Title The rhetoric of heroic expectations : establishing the Obama presidency / edited by Justin S. Vaughn and Jennifer R. Mercieca

Edition First edition Published College Station : Texas A & M University Press, [2014] ©2014

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Description 1 online resource (xviii, 279 pages) : illustrations Series Presidential rhetoric and political communication ; number 24 Presidential rhetoric and political communication ; no. 24. Contents Barack Obama and the rhetoric of heroic expectations / Jennifer R. Mercieca and Justin S. Vaughn -- A lighthouse at the crossroads: Barack Obama's call for agonistic democracy / Jay P. Childers -- The "we" in "yes, we can": Obama's audience, the audience's Obama, and consubstantiality / Eric Dieter -- Overcoming institutional burdens: President Obama's rhetorical leadership in his first year / Brandon Rottinghaus -- Where's the media? President Obama, the public, and news coverage / Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha -- The United States and the world: the rhetorical dimension of Obama's foreign policy / David Zarefsky -- Resetting America's role in the world: President Obama's rhetoric of (re)conciliation and partnership / Jason A. Edwards -- Obama's two bodies: a study in American economic theology / James Arnt Aune -- The secular messianic style in Barack Obama's "call to renewal" speech / Catherine L. Langford -- The exodus as burden: Obama, agency, and the containment thesis / Dave Tell -- Picturing the presidents: Obama and the visual politics of White House art / Cara Finnegan -- Michelle Obama, "mom-in-chief": gender, race, and familialism in media representations of the First Lady / Bonnie J. Dow -- Epilogue: Carrying the burden: how Barack Obama both embraced and diminished heroic expectations / Jennifer R. Mercieca and Justin S. Vaughn Summary Campaign rhetoric helps candidates to get elected, but its effects last well beyond the counting of the ballots; this was perhaps never truer than in Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. Did Obama create such high expectations that they actually hindered his ability to enact his agenda? Should we judge his performance by the scale of the expectations his rhetoric generated, or against some other standard? The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations: Establishing the Obama Presidency grapples with these and other important questions. Barack Obama's election seemed to many to fulfill Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of the "long arc of the moral universe ... bending toward justice." And after the terrorism, war, and economic downturn of the previous decade, candidate Obama's rhetoric cast broad visions of a change in the direction of American life. In these and other ways, the election of 2008 presented an especially strong example of creating expectations that would shape the public's views of the incoming administration. The public's high expectations, in turn, become a part of any president's burden upon assuming office. The interdisciplinary scholars who have contributed to this volume focus their analysis upon three kinds of presidential burdens: institutional burdens (specific to the office of the presidency); contextual burdens (specific to the historical moment within which the president assumes office); and personal burdens (specific to the individual who becomes president).--Publisher description Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject Obama, Barack. SUBJECT Obama, Barack fast Subject Presidents -- United States -- Election -- 2008 Rhetoric -- Political aspects -- United States HISTORY -- United States -- State & Local -- General. Politics and government Presidents -- Election Rhetoric -- Political aspects SUBJECT United States -- Politics and government -- 2009-2017 Subject United States Form Electronic book Author Vaughn, Justin S., 1978- editor. Mercieca, Jennifer R., editor. LC no. 2013022042 ISBN 9781623491215 1623491215 9781461958277 146195827X

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