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Justin Hilliard
Professor Bevill
ENGLISH 1302
19 September 2016
Rhetorical Analysis: Ann Richards
On a summer night in July of 1988, Ann Richards gave the Keynote Speech at the
Democratic National Convention with her endorsement of Presidential Candidate Michael
Dukakis. She validated herself not only to those in attendance, but on television as well. She did
so by starting out with a introduction that not only played to the men and women in the audience
but also the Hispanic populace with her greeting. To add to that she played to the women that
were watching by stating that Ginger Rodgers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did
it backwards and in high heels (Richards, 1). In her speech she addressed numerous hot topic
points to the audience, including the lack of respectable jobs, the economy, and the general
concerns of the American people who were trying to make it on a day to day basis. Her pointed
speech was directed at Vice President George Bush and how after eight years of him serving as
Vice President, he was still not capable of leading the country. Mrs. Richards also delivered a
challenge to the country to turn away from the Republican stance of how the country should be
run and that a Democratic view point was what the country needed to turn into the right
direction. The arguments put forth by Governor Richards, are founded on the beliefs of the
country she grew up in and supported by the struggles the country was currently going through
leading up to the election. She did this by using three argument styles of Fallacy: Begging the
Question, Ad Hominem, and Bandwagon Appeals. Mrs. Richards lays down a gauntlet during
the DNC towards the Republican Party. She talks from the heart to describe what the American

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people feel is wrong with the country and how the Democratic Party is their Knight in Shining
Armor, to rescue this country.
During the Speech, Ann Richards used Begging the Question in relation to the
economy. She stated that the current party holding the office has spent excessively over the
course of the term to build up our military and has increased the national deficit as a result. She
goes further into detail to describe the overspending as using Billions of dollars on planes that
will not fly, tanks that will not fire, and systems that will not work (Richards, 4). By using this
argument she has stated that it was a waste of money to provide the Armed Forces with this
equipment that will go unused due to the pending end of the Cold War. By using that statement
to bring forward a point of government overspending, she vilifies the Republican Party by
playing on the fears of Americans during the Cold War to build up the Armed Forces of the
United States to fight a phantom enemy, by this she went the Soviet Union that was on the verge
of collapse. Governor Richards also lays claim to the amount of money, Republicans have spent
fighting the war on Drugs(Richard, 4), yet she points out how they are using American money
to negotiate with a Dictator known to be invested in getting drugs into America.
Governor Richards had to make pointed remarks to make Vice President Bush not look
like the best man or the job and by using the Ad Hominem argument, she successfully made
him look not fit for the position. She begins her speech with an introduction that not only builds
rapport but also makes jokes of VP Bushs Texas accent and his claim to be a true Texan. She
made claims of his inability to answer question and the use of background noise to not be able to
hear the questions asked of him by the press to avoid answering the questions posed. By doing
this, it makes VP Bush looks incompetent to handle the job of President of the United States.
Governor Richards goes further into the argument by stating that he was born with a silver foot

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in his mouth (Richards, 4). By making this statement she is claiming that by coming from a
wealthy family, that George Bush was not qualified to make decisions that would affect the
middle and lower class of Americans.
All throughout this speech, Mrs. Richards appeals to the crowd through the Bandwagon
Appeal process. She repeatedly brings up her upbringing as a small town girl from a poor
family. By doing so she is allowing the audience to relate to her by having common factors in
their life. Ann uses family values as a means as well to get people to believe in the best possible
choice for President would be a person that also follows those appeals. During the speech she
specifically points out the Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis is that exact person and will
be a family oriented President. By making this appeal to the audience, she gets them in the
mindset of values and as the country being a whole and not separate by which region of the
country you are from. While doing this, she would then turn to how the Republican Party does
not see the country as a whole, how they divide the country by region and how they do not
believe that the country fits together. Mrs. Richards even goes so far as to say that Vice
President George Bush does not understand family values due to his high scale upbringing. She
closes her argument with bringing the future generations into the speech. Ann talks about her
granddaughter and how she hopes that the broken (Richards, 5) country can heal itself and
bring back the values that she grew up with so that the future generations can have the same
lifestyle she did.
The entirety of this speech was very thought out and thorough to meet the talking points
for the current hot topics during the timeframe. Ann Richards pointed out the short comings in
the political arena at the time of the speech and how the Democratic Party had plans to fix those
errors. She appealed to the crowd routinely to make them feel a part of the speech and to keep

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them engaged with the topics at hand. By using the argument styles of fallacy in her speech, she
very effectively got the points across to the audience while also holding a cheerful aura within
the convention.

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Work Cited
Richards, Ann. Keynote Address-DNC. American Rhetoric, Eidenmuller, Michael.
Americanrhetoric.com (2008).