Republican candidate Mitt Romney promises economic change in Scottsdale, Ariz. The efficacy of political speech is debatable in the age of televised and accessible politics. (Associated Press)

Since the first televised presidential debate in 1960 with John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, there has been a national focus on word choice and delivery in presidential speeches.
Consequently, it has been said that “the power of the presidency is the power to persuade.” Consistent with this election season, we have seen presidential hopefuls at their worst and at their very best.

In front of pulpits, preaching to a voting crowd, using every word possible to sound appealing.

The natural question is, why is there so much significance on presidential rhetoric?

“If you don’t say exactly what you mean,” Jessica Huseman, Politically Inclined blogger and publisher of GenWhy Press, said. “People will decide what you meant for you.”

And that can be dangerous.

From Rick Perry’s “oops” to Newt Gingrich’s ostentatious remarks toward John King’s opening question at the Jan. 18 CNN Debate, America has seen the effect of dramatic responses.

Dr. Matthew Wilson, professor of political science, explained this outcome.

“Style and theatrics can move numbers in the short term but it’s remarkable how by the end of the day, by the end of the election, things seem to revert pretty close to what the fundamentals of substance would be.”

The fundamentals are exactly what we have seen Mitt Romney, the presumed GOP nominee, cling to in this election season.

According to Huseman, Romney has fundamentally used rhetoric to further himself.

“Romney has, since the beginning of the campaign, used rhetoric to position himself as the inevitable candidate,” Huseman said.

“All along,” Huseman continued, “he rarely mentioned his opponents and focused instead on Barack Obama.

He wanted to make it seem like he was already in the general election. The voters just had to get the other people out of the race so he could move on to the big leagues.”

And Romney is currently playing in the big leagues, although unofficially. He is looking and sounding more presidential.

National polls have not only restricted focus on Romney and Obama but they are beginning to show Romney’s surge to meet the president’s.

And it is at this point of the campaign when the he-said, she-said rhetoric begins.

Hillary Rosen, the Democratic strategist who said Mitt Romney’s wife had “never actually worked a day in her life,” came under fire for her remarks as they made Ann Romney appear to have an easy life staying at home.

Whether or not Rosen was right in her statement is beside the point.

What matters is that the Romney campaign was able to use that rhetoric to get more attention.

Obama has also made remarks and they tend to ambiguously refer to the other candidate.

Recently, he said in a speech that he “was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth,” and many people took that as a dig on Mitt Romney, whose father was wealthy.

And as expected, Romney took this remark under his wing to once again win favor among more voters.

Commenting on whether Obama will limit his jabs, Huseman said, “I would imagine that Obama will continue to make off-hand comments until Romney is the official nominee, but in the meantime I think he’s making a mistake in mentioning him at all.”

Although the debate on whether this was meant as a verbal attack towards Romney continues, Romney has nonetheless used the opportunity to seize vulnerable voters.

However, Ezra Klein of the New Yorker suggests that language does not work to persuade people in a “meaningful” way.

Words are unable to foster loyal voters.

He uses the example of the State of the Union address’ inability to generate a positive public standing of the president, even though many Americans watch it.

As Klein writes, “Obama’s 2012 address fit the pattern; his approval rating was 46 percent on the day of the speech, and 47 percent a week later.”

“Even the most effective presidential communicators, people like John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan who were very gifted orators,” said Dr. Wilson, “seem only to have moved public opinion in the short term with their speeches and then there have been a quick reversion typically back to public opinion baseline.”

Furthermore, in an interview with President Obama, Peter Baker of the New York Times wrote, “word choice does not matter if people do not agree with you to begin with.”

Baker also wrote of Obama, “He has learned that, for all his anti-Washington rhetoric, he has to play by Washington rules if he wants to win in Washington.

It is not enough to be supremely sure that he is right if no one else agrees with him.”

Dr. Wilson summarizes, adding, Obama is “great at giving a speech, but no matter how many speeches he gave he was never able to sell people on the health care reform bill.

So there were reasons for people to oppose the health care reform bill that transcended his ability to be rhetorically persuasive.”

Wilson assures that this is “not an uncommon phenomenon, that presidents often confront the limits to their rhetorical power.”

Ayen is a junior majoring in journalism with a minor in human rights.