Requirements

We know, for example, that the nominee's ultimate goal is to win in November and that, to do so, he will need all the help he can get from within and outside his party. We know too that the acceptance speech is scheduled as the culmination of the convention proceedings and that the convention itself occurs at a symbolically significant transitional point between the highly conflictual presidential primaries and the upcoming election contest. From these facts alone, it should be possible to begin our list of rhetorical requirements.

In his acceptance speech, the nominee should attempt to heal the wounds of battle within the party. Differences in outlook that might have threatened to divide the party must now be submerged and subordinated to principles of unity and loyalty and sacrifice. The nominee must make conciliatory gestures to adversaries and enlist their cooperation for the battle ahead. He must remind them that his opponents, and their opponents, are now outside the party rather than within. And he must sound the themes that will be echoed in the months ahead--themes that can provide a rallying cry for the party faithful; themes that can also appeal to opinion leaders and ordinary citizens outside the party.

We know too that the acceptance speech has a significant ritual component to it, growing out of a long tradition. There are the balloons and the placard waving and the dancing in the aisles after the nominee has been introduced as "The next President of the United States." And there are the nominee's gestures of appreciation, his call for quiet, and his opening words of thanks to the delegates and of tribute to the party and to its past leaders. At ceremonial events in general, speakers have an excellent opportunity to display themselves favorably by the manner in which they perform the appropriate rituals. As the nominees go through the motions of evoking their party's traditions at this event, they will be attempting to look and sound presidential.

We know also that the acceptance speech is televised to many millions of people. That the speech will be heard by a significant cross-section of the populace represents a great opportunity, but it also poses something of a challenge, for we know in general that what pleases some audience segments will inevitably alienate others. One consequence of acceptance speeches being televised should be a slight modification of the rituals. For example, instead of invoking only the memories of past leaders from within one's own party, now the nominees should quote past heroes of both major parties in an effort to appeal to a broader spectrum of opinion.

But the acceptance speaker still must persist in giving primary attention to his convention audience because of the curious relationship between the convention audience and the larger television audience. Many in the television audience, particularly those with little involvement in politics, will probably take their cues about how well the nominee is doing from their assessment of the convention audience's assessment. We know that the television networks frequently assist the viewer by showing pictures of reactions to the speech by those in attendance at the convention. Thus the presidential nominee must play to the smaller convention audience because of its influence on the larger television audience.

This, then, is an illustration of what we can learn about what a persuader must do from an assessment of situation alone. This assessment contains some hypotheses that probably ought to be checked against studies comparing actual speeches (Hart, 1984; Ritter, 1980). But even assuming that no such studies were available, we might still feel confident in formulating prescriptive rules for the genre on the basis of our situation-based theoretical assessment. Here is a capsule summary of requisite functions and subfunctions emerging from that assessment:

1. Healing the wounds of battle within the party

a. Enlisting the cooperation of former opponents

b. Redirecting energies toward the new "enemy"

c. Looking and sounding like the leader of the entire party

2. Preparing party activists for the upcoming campaign

a. Identifying themes around which party stalwarts can mobilize

b. Inspiring effort and dedication

c. Looking and sounding like a winner

3. Winning the support of opinion leaders and ordinary citizens outside the party

a. Articulating campaign themes that have broad-based appeal

b. Impressing the television audience that the "live" convention audience has been duly impressed

c. Looking and sounding "presidential"

This list provides a set of benchmarks for rhetorical analysis of any given acceptance speech, but it ought not to be a stopping point for the analyst. With Titter (1980), for example, the critic might note that the burdens for the acceptance speech fall somewhat differently upon the incumbent president than upon his challenger. Carter had a White House record to defend. He could no longer attack the "mess in Washington" as he had done in 1976. The challenger, on the other hand, has to convince people that he is sufficiently experienced to perform the job competently. Carter had to fulfill other rhetorical requirements as well which were unique to his situation, but these can be identified as we move to the second stage of application of the RPS framework: problem identification.