Whither the Conservative Movement pg 3
This paper will examine the rhetoric used by conservative politicians from 1964 through 2004. Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, and George W. Bush are selected as those conservative politicians successful enough to win their party’s nomination for President. Presidential candidates for 1968, 1972, and 1976 were not included because they did not run on a conservative ideology. The paper will specifically examine the rhetoric used in describing taxation policy. Rhetorical patterns will be linked to ideological writings in order to compare the ideologies of the five men.
It should be noted from the beginning that rhetorical patterns only infer ideology; they do not provide indisputable proof. This is all the more true because an attempt to work backwards from rhetoric to ideology requires the researcher to make judgments concerning the meaning of the speaker’s words. Short of directly questioning the political actors at length, however, it is unlikely that a better method of divining ideology can be obtained. In the interest of intellectual rigor, it is suggested that review and study be conducted by other researchers in order to evaluate the results of this paper.
In the interest of maintaining continuity throughout the paper, all quotes have been removed from the text and included in a separate appendix. A shorthand method was devised where quotes were given identifying numbers and are parenthetically cited in order to allow the reader to follow the thought process behind the analysis. Every measure has been taken to ensure that quotes were not taken out of context.
It will be noted that no attempt was made to ensure an equal number of quotations from each of the political actors studied. Care was exercised to ensure that the quotes used were characteristic of the men being analyzed. While other quotations could have been used, it is unlikely that they would have turned up drastically different results. As
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It should be noted from the beginning that rhetorical patterns only infer ideology; they do not provide indisputable proof. This is all the more true because an attempt to work backwards from rhetoric to ideology requires the researcher to make judgments concerning the meaning of the speaker’s words. Short of directly questioning the political actors at length, however, it is unlikely that a better method of divining ideology can be obtained. In the interest of intellectual rigor, it is suggested that review and study be conducted by other researchers in order to evaluate the results of this paper.
In the interest of maintaining continuity throughout the paper, all quotes have been removed from the text and included in a separate appendix. A shorthand method was devised where quotes were given identifying numbers and are parenthetically cited in order to allow the reader to follow the thought process behind the analysis. Every measure has been taken to ensure that quotes were not taken out of context.
It will be noted that no attempt was made to ensure an equal number of quotations from each of the political actors studied. Care was exercised to ensure that the quotes used were characteristic of the men being analyzed. While other quotations could have been used, it is unlikely that they would have turned up drastically different results. As
Go on to Page 4
© 2004 by Xpatriated Texan
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