Thee Checkers Speech Rhetorical Analasis - 1483 Words

Checkers, The American Dog in Disguise: A Rhetorical Analysis of Nixons Address In The Checkers Speech, Richard Nixon responds to criticism regarding an alleged secret fund. At this time, 1952, Nixon was running for vice president with presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower was enjoying enormous popularity when the rumor surfaced one month before the election. Nixon was accused of accepting a supplemental salary of $18,000 dollars, contributed by a group of supporters back in his home state of California. There were also rumors that Eisenhower would drop Nixon from the ticket. So Nixon was forced to come up with a remedy for the untimely situation. Not only did he have to convince the American people he was†¦show more content†¦Nixon was basically stating that he was a proven enemy of communists and that the democrats assisted them. Finally, Nixon supports Eisenhower by showing that he is qualified to clean up corruption and deal with communists. If one looks closely at Nixons speech it has a very easy, logical pattern to follow, and allowed him to achieve every goal that he set for himself. One of his main intentions of his speech was to attack the democrats, but at the same time make republicans, including himself, look good. After Nixon built up his own credibility, he began to bash the democrats. He implied that Stevenson and Sparkman had something to hide, unless they do as I did and make their finances pubic. Nixon encourages his audience to believe a lot of things that may or may not have been true. One, that he has done nothing morally wrong with using the $18,000 fund because he made his finances public. Two, he is an honest man, and he deserves to be retained as Vice Presidential candidate. Three, rich men such as Governor Stevenson who inherited a fortune from his father should not deserve to be president. But, a modest man such as himself or Eisenhower, a common man that God must have loved, should have th at chance at office. In general Nixon said that Eisenhower and he, the republican candidates, are qualified to lead the country and democrats are not. Therefore, he only left the American public with the option of electing the