Hilary Clinton Outreach

Hilary Clinton, one of the leading candidates in today’s campaign race, employs many different tactics in order to persuade possible voters to vote for her. She uses a large combination of advertisements, social media, speeches, and many more ways in order to mobilize her followers. The two main ways of communication she seems to use the most would be advertisements and social media.

Clinton’s advertisements all seem to have a common ground; they use the rhetorical appeal pathos. Pathos is the rhetorical appeal that attempts to persuade the audience by making them feel certain emotions. In most if not all of Clinton’s TV ads she portrays herself and everyday people as if they are one in the same. Her official 2016 presidential campaign announcement takes almost the entire video to allow every day average people to say what they are wishing for in 2015. It’s not until the 1:40 mark of a 2:27 video before Clinton even says “And I’m running for president this year.” She does not only a heartfelt video with families in it but then says phrases like “Every day Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion!” Another video released by Clinton and her team is titled Family Strong. In this video she starts off with old pictures of her mom and tells the story of how her mom was abandoned and mistreated at a young age which she explains is why she has always wanted to stand up for kids. The video continues one pulling at the emotions of the viewers by adding in pictures of Hilary when she was younger and talking about all of the great things she has done. Hilary ends her pathos appeal by stating “I believe that when families are strong America is strong.” The use of the emotional appeal is evident her in advertising from the pictures and families used in her videos to the messages she ends them with. All of these things lead to her using pathos as a way to persuade voters to come out.

Another way Clinton is using communication is through social media sites. She is using sites such as Twitter to post information on her campaign as well as some of her views and quotes. In her use of social media, she has been using the rhetorical appeal of logos, or logic. She crafts her tweets in a way that gives credible information to her followers and even gives them links to websites in order to get involved with the campaign. One that was posted yesterday on Twitter says “Live in Iowa? Learn how to caucus here!” It then provides a link that takes you to her home page where an article pulls up that tells you about how to get involved. By using logic in her tweets as well as some emotion she is perfectly pitching herself and he ideas to the public.

Overall I would say that Clinton’s outreach and rhetorical appeals are helping her in this campaign. She is using both ethos and pathos in a fusion way which allows for her to invoke the real emotion of potential voters and then turn around and hit them with logic and facts on the issues that are being discussed. I think this combination is proving to be effective for Clinton in this campaign.