Closing arguments on the campaign trail

updated 12:07 p.m. ET Nov. 11, 2007

CONCORD, N.H. - On the campaign trail, the presidential contenders know that closing arguments count - the final words of their stump speeches that audiences take home with them.

Democrat Barack Obama often ends with a rousing call to action. John Edwards makes a quieter pledge to meet "the moral test of our generation." Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Richardson turn to history to say what kind of presidents they'd like to be.

Republican John McCain punctuates his stump speech with a somber story about a soldier's death, while Mitt Romney ends with an ode to optimism. Less prone to rhetorical flourishes, Rudy Giuliani sticks to a boiled-down take-it-or-leave-it message.

All can be effective, experts say.

The politics of rhetoric
Candidates often save their most emotional material for the end, after they've established their credibility and followed up with the nuts and bolts of their plans, said John Adams, a professor of communications at Hamilton College in New York.

"Usually, speakers will pick up the pace toward the end - it's like NASCAR rhetoric," he says.

Stories that use vivid characters to explain a moral are particularly effective, said Adams, who believes audience members also like candidates who show they can learn from their experiences. Obama's rallying cry is an example.

In what has become a trademark ending, Obama recently described arriving in Greenwood, S.C., in a foul mood only to end up inspired by an elderly city councilwoman who was hollering "Fired up!" and "Ready to go!" to the 20 or so folks who showed up to meet him.

"Your voice can change the world," Obama concludes in his speech later, leading his audience in the same chant. "Are you fired up? Are you ready to go? Fired up! Ready to go! Fired up! Ready to go! Let's go change the world!"

Obama's speech also gets high marks from Jane Elmes-Crahall, an expert on political rhetoric, who praises it as "brilliant storytelling, both strategically and the way he delivers it."

"He has not just the repetition people use to pace a story, but concrete details," said Elmes-Crahall, professor of communication at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. "The details become vivid and memorable, and at the end there is a final emotional appeal that says 'You as an individual voter, carry this with you.'"

Craig Smith, who worked as a speechwriter for former President Ford, was less enthusiastic about Obama's story, which clocks in at nearly six minutes. "Way too long," he said. "It takes forever to get to the punch line."

Selling commitment
Like Obama, Edwards urges his audiences to join him on a mission. The former trial lawyer lists all the people who inspire him - from his father's co-workers at the mill to breast cancer patients like his wife - then broadens the scope to past generations.

"I also run on behalf of, really, 20 generations of Americans who came before us, and every one of them ensured that their children would have a better life than they had. I think this is more than politics. I think this is the great moral test of our generation," he says. "But I will tell you this, I do believe that together we're going to meet that test."

"He threads that quality of commitment to someone he loves all the way out to successively larger collectives, until finally that same commitment that begins with his commitment to his father extends all the way out to the American people," said Adams, the Hamilton College professor.

Picking the president: The candidates Click to visit that candidate's MSNBC page or click the XML symbol for an RSS feed. John McCain                Barack Obama

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