Article for my Letter to the Editor

Feeling a Challenge, Obama Sharpens His Silver Tongue
By JEFF ZELENY
LEBANON, Va. — A new character is making a debut at Senator Barack Obama’s campaign rallies: His name is John McCain.
It began quietly on Monday in Michigan, but grew in volume as Mr. Obama made his way from Flint to Farmington Hills, carrying over to a speech on Tuesday morning in Ohio. By the time he arrived for an evening stop in the southwestern tip of Virginia, Mr. Obama’s sales pitch contained nearly as many references to Senator McCain as to himself, suggesting how the McCain campaign has been driving the recent dialogue of the presidential race.
“John McCain says he’s about change, too — except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics,” Mr. Obama told his supporters here. “That’s just calling the same thing something different.”
With a laugh, he added: “You can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change; it’s still going to stink after eight years.”
In the latest sign of the campaign’s heightened intensity, Mr. McCain’s surrogates responded within minutes and called on Mr. Obama to apologize to Gov. Sarah Palin for the lipstick remark. But to those in the audience, it was clear that Mr. Obama was employing an age-old phrase — lipstick on a pig — and referring to Mr. McCain’s policies. He had not yet mentioned Ms. Palin at that point of his speech.
The exchange came as Mr. Obama has been stepping up his own rhetoric as he has sought to draw attention back to himself after a week in which Ms. Palin has dominated the stage.
For all the discussion about polls this week, perhaps the best barometer of the state of the campaign can be found by simply taking a listen to Mr. Obama as Election Day rushes up on him.
With just 57 days remaining in this long presidential race, Mr. Obama is going after Mr. McCain more aggressively than at any other point in the campaign, with a professorial tone giving way to one of prosecution. These days, he sounds more like those sharp-tongued commercials seen on television.
“Do you really believe John McCain is going to make a difference now?” Mr. Obama said, mentioning his rival’s name twice in the same breath, a pattern he repeated again and again. “John McCain doesn’t get it.”
His advisers said that combative edge was essential to blunt any progress Mr. McCain was making as he sought to encroach on Mr. Obama’s trademark message of change. Or perhaps it is in response to cries of alarm from Democrats who believe he is being too mild-mannered.
But Mr. Obama’s remarks are curiously reminiscent — right down to that mocking tone — to words he spoke nearly a year ago when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton suddenly tried to swipe the mantle of change and Mr. Obama demonstrated a fight that many Democrats had doubted he could muster.
Mr. Obama has been in this place before: finding the proper temperature to aggressively critique — or attack — his rival without tarnishing his own image of trying to remain above traditional politics. As he enters the final eight weeks of the race, advisers said, the lessons from the Democratic primaries are alive in his head.
Mr. McCain and his running mate, Ms. Palin, seem to be there, too.
“A month ago, they were all saying, ‘Oh, it’s experience, experience, experience,’ ” Mr. Obama said, speaking over booming applause the other night in a high school gymnasium. “Then they chose Palin and they started talking about change, change, change. What happened? What happened? What happened?”
For one of the few times in his presidential candidacy, Mr. Obama is suddenly not the freshest and most telegenic figure on the ballot. While he seems to have settled on a line of attack against Mr. McCain, his campaign appearances in the past 12 days make clear that he is still grappling with his approach to Ms. Palin.
He has declared her family off limits. He has praised her biography, telling an audience, “Mother, governor, moose shooter — that’s cool.” But he has taken sharp aim at her record as Alaska governor, vigorously questioning her evolving stance on the state’s so-called bridge to nowhere.
“She was for it until everybody started raising a fuss about it and she started running for governor and then suddenly she was against it,” Mr. Obama said, speaking over an applauding crowd in Michigan. “I mean, you can’t just make stuff up. You can’t just recreate yourself. You can’t just reinvent yourself. The American people aren’t stupid.”
There were plentiful signs in recent days that the voters turning out to see Mr. Obama liked his forceful tone, with several audiences chanting along with him, “Eight is Enough! Eight is Enough!” which has become a rallying cry for changing Washington.
Newly invigorated, his presence and energy on stage resembled how he began to act last fall as his extended primary battle with Mrs. Clinton became fully engaged.
But as in that contest, Mr. Obama’s aggressive posture comes with possible pitfalls — real or created by the opposition — as he again navigates the tricky terrain of gender politics.
As Mr. Obama’s motorcade passed through the Appalachian countryside on Tuesday night, aides inside his campaign headquarters back in Chicago were fighting back criticism over the lipstick-on-a-pig remark, assertively trying to steer the conversation back to attacking Mr. McCain.

Topic #1

For my topic I am going to talk about the gender role of women that is being used in this election. I have been interested in this ever since I this election has started. Beginning with the fact that Hillary Clinton was going to run. I originally was all for Hillary to campaign and win this election. However, I changed my mind after realizing the only real reason I liked her was because she was a woman... I did not necessarily agree with all of her opinions. During the time that I was cheering her on and hoping that she would win I always received the comment "You only like her because she is a woman." Yet, on the flip side when I changed my mind about her I received many comments like "You do not like her because she is a woman." Which, personally did not make since because due to the fact I am a woman wouldn't that mean I would like her more. Further more, I never heard during any time of this election someone going up to a male and telling them that they were voting for McCain or Obama because they were a man or the only reason you do not like then is because they are a man. I find it interesting that people around the country are making such a huge deal out of the fact there are women running. Not only that but everything now that politicians and others say are looked at even closer.
Now with that is why I have chosen my article. I found it in the New York Times and it is discussing the speech that Obama made when he said "You can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig." In any other election that has gone on in the history of the United States this comment would not be looked at twice. If it did it would have been seen as a stab at the opponents views. However, due to the fact that McCain has a woman running with him it suddenly became tied to Ms. Palin. All I have to say to that is just because Obama says that a pig is wearing lipstick does not mean that he is talking about a woman. This age old phrase became twisted into something more then it was meant to be. This and other things like that are what interests me about the women in the race. Now McCain and Obama have to watch everything they say in hopes that they do not say anything that can be tied back to a rude comment about a woman. I say just run this race like any other. Why should the whole gender thing matter?

Presidential Election

In the presidential election there are MANY issues that are going around, and I find a couple of them important. This is the first presidential election that 1. have been able to actually be involved in and vote and 2. I have actually been interested in. I have been following up on this election since my government class last year that opened my eyes to how big of a deal a presidential election really is.
I have sat and studied some of the aspects that is making up this election and I feel that I tend to look toward things like education and teachers. This matters a lot to me because I am an education major and do plan on becoming a teacher as soon as I graduate. This is going to impact me a lot and I also feel education is a HUGE thing for American to look at. Especially since statistics show that we are beginning to fall behind China and India. However, I will get off that topic because I could talk about it forever.
Also, I do believe that the war is a big deal to Americans also. I think more what is going to become of it. I personally, believe no matter who becomes the president is going to pull anyone out of Iraq. So I am looking more toward what the candidates plan on doing at all. Some I have to look harder then others but I really want to know everything I can about this topic.
Health care is the last thing I really look at. This is very important because, once again, this involves everyone in the United States. I am very interested in the plans to make it universal or not. I am interested in this topic, however, I have not looked into it yet as much as I wish I have.
These are the top three things I look for and I am going to continue to look for other things that interest me, but for now this is about it.

Logos

Since Logos is "based on facts, evidence, and reason" I am going to choose to bring in a weather report for my example. I do realize that it is an example in the book, however, I was surprised to see it as an example for Logos. This may seem strange but I have honestly never realized that a weather report would count as a Logos example or even as an argument. After contemplating this I realized in that this did make since. It can be an argument based off facts because how the weather is going to look is looked at as a "fact" for how we should expect or day to be. If the weather person says that there is a 60% chance of rain that is what I am going to look for and dress for. Now this can be an argument for the present if it does not look like it is even close to raining. It can be an argument for the future if it says it is going to rain so that is how you dressed and then it ends up being 90 degrees out and sunny.
This is an argument but it is not as emotionally powerful as the picture of the girl struck by a drunk driver and as the paper stating that liberating Iraqi children cost too much. However, weather reports can be an argument of great emotion, especially, if the weather turns out incorrect.

Sample Argument

For my sample argument I chose to use a chik fil a cow. I thought this was a good sample for the arguments because it fits into many of the argument categories. It argued for you to make a decision because it is now arguing with you to make a decision to come and eat chicken at chick fil a instead of going out and eating cow at another fast food place or restaurant. Also, the stuffed animal atempts to convince you to choose chick fil a for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or whatever meal or snack you are looking for. Also, it is to inform you of chick fil a and its existance in general. Now for the time that this could take place within the argument is the present because it can argue for you to eat now. The future because you can decide that later you would rather have chick fil a, and also in the past because this could make you argue with your self or someone else about why you did not choose to eat at chick fil a and instead for eating at another restaurant. So once again to verify my point, my stuffed animal chick fil a is an excellent piece of evidence to prove there is arguement every where.

About Me...

Hi,
My name is Breann Hager and I am a sophomore here at TCU. I am planning on receiving my Masters in Early Childhood Education at TCU and specializing in Special Education. I hope to some day teach the second grade and work with children who have ADD and ADHD. After a few years of teaching experience, I would like to become a principal of a school. I also hope to join the Peace Core and go to other countries to teach children in under privilaged communities. I also want to be involved in Teach Across America where I would be teaching in low income school districts in the United States. I am the oldest of five children and originally from Lisbon Falls, Maine. I moved to Euless, Texas for high school where I attended Trinity High School. I am still adjusting to the weather and the fact that SO many people are so proud of their state as Texans are. It is amazing!
I am required to take this class, however, I did choose to take the course with Mrs. Patrick because I enjoyed here class last semester, When I heard that this class was based on the presidential campaigns and had politics tied into it I jumped on signing up for this course. I became interested in politcs ever since my government class last semester. It really opened my eyes to this election, and made me excited to take this course.
I do agree with everything and understand everything that is on the syllabus.

final project

for my final project i cam up with an idea. This one i believe i am going to stick to. The point that i am trying to come across for my project is that colleges should require their incoming frechmen girls to take a self defense class. So for my project I plan on having a picture with a girl kicking a guy in the groin. I want to possiblly steal the picture from the t-shirt i recieved at my self defense class and it hass a barvie kicking a ken doll in the groin. I want to do somthing with dolls like this because i feel more people will pay attention to it and it will make people a lot more interested. But then i am going to have her at a party, since that is were most assaults take place, and i want it to say somthing along the lines of has your college truley prepared you for life? but i feel that may be too long of a saying. However, i plan on making my project a poster to hang up around campuses so if anyone did want to look at it they were able to. But i am afraid that may be too long of a saying, especially, if people are walking by it so i might also do a flyer or even a magazine artile may work. But i plan on making a huge poster right now. I want it to come off as serious but i also want it to ber some what humerous where girls would actually look and pay attention to it and remember it.