Dallas Dance's Guide to Evaluating the Presidential Debates

The 2020 Presidential campaigns are underway, with dozens of Democratic candidates and a few Republicans and independents already vying for their party’s nomination. For Manassas residents, it can be overwhelming to look at the complete field of candidates and decide whom to support. Educational professionals like Dallas Dance are able to explain the system of determining the merit of presidential candidates during the debates using the classic logic of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.

High Standards

Above all, presidential candidates should conduct themselves with the highest regard for their personal reputations. A high level of personal integrity is required to be a presidential candidate. It is difficult for candidates with spotty reputations to gain the people’s confidence. They may find that their dirty laundry is aired during the campaign, damaging their chances of being elected.

Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

Ethos, pathos, and logos are traditional rhetorical principles going back to Ancient Greece and the works of Aristotle. Many political science professionals use the principles of ethos, pathos, and logos to judge the debate performance of presidential candidates. This system is especially helpful during the debates when candidates are explaining their personal belief systems and laying out how they will deal with various challenges during their term in office.

Ethos is the Greek word for character. Judging a person by their character can help people decide which presidential candidate to vote for. It also helps to group people together, in complying with one prevailing type of candidate or another. Ethos is also an appeal to ethics, in which a candidate calls on the audience to make certain moral or ethical judgments.

Pathos is an appeal to emotion. Pathos means drawing on people’s emotional responses in order to make a convincing case. Using pathos, candidates are able to draw on the audience’s emotions of happiness, fear, disgust, and pity, among others.

Logos is the art of persuading using reason, facts, and figures. Certain presidential candidates have excelled at this throughout the years. Other candidates tend to eschew logical arguments in favor of emotional responses.

Campaign Issues and Ethos

Many campaign issues lend themselves to explanation in relation to ethos. A candidate’s basic sense of right and wrong plays into their ethos. For example, some candidates may sincerely believe that illegal immigrants should be welcomed into the country. Others may believe that it is best for our country to keep firm borders and to discourage illegal migration. Both sides tend to make their argument on this topic through ethos, though both of the other rhetorical techniques are used as well.

Pathos in a Campaign

Many candidates have used pathos, or an appeal to emotion, when constructing campaign speeches. Different sides of a political debate draw on different types of emotions. For example, a Democratic candidate may appeal for universal or single-payer health care based on the negative experiences of other voters who have struggled to receive treatment through the established health care system in the United States today. A Republican candidate may approach the issue from a different angle, playing on the fear that voters will be forced to surrender their current employer-provided insurance plans.

Logos, Facts, and Figures

Some candidates approach the principle of logos better than others. When using facts and figures to back up campaign assertions, it is absolutely necessary that these figures are accurate. Certain candidates and elected officials have been ridiculed for presenting inaccurate information, whether this is intentional and meant to mislead or a simple mistake.

Creating statistics from scratch is an undesirable trait, but it has been practiced by members of both major political parties. The use of fact-checkers in the press has been very helpful in letting voters know the merits of what they are hearing.

Evaluating Candidates

Manassas voters need to be conscious of how they are being approached by each candidate, and they need to be aware of any rhetorical techniques that are being used in order to make logical judgments about the candidates in question.

Especially with so many Democrats still in the field, there are ample opportunities for these candidates to relate their message and to convince Manassas voters that they deserve to be elected. Experts like Dallas Dance can help voters decide which candidate is the best fit for their personal principles.