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Colin McGee

Lori Bedell

CAS 137 Rhetoric and Civic Life

5 October 2018

Rhetorical Analysis of Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke

Texas is not typically seen as a place that creates exhilarating political battles. This year

things are different. Beto O’Rourke is giving Ted Cruz the race of his life, and part of the race

includes a flood of advertisements and town halls as November nears. The two events of this

campaign that will be highlighted here both pertain to National Anthem kneeling by NFL

players. Beto O’Rourke has taken the side of the players, and in a town hall event he said that

“he can think of nothing more American” while Ted Cruz vehemently disagrees and has taken

advantage of O’Rourke’s comments and turned it into a campaign advertisement. Both Ted

Cruz’s campaign advertisement and Beto O'Rourke's townhall response are calls for votes,

employing emotional appeals to a specific ideology, and taking advantage of a kairotic moment,

but Cruz also applies certain stylistic techniques and ethos in his ad whereas O’Rourke uses

logos and attempts to utilize commonplaces.

Both advertisements are meant to accomplish the same goal, convince voters, but they

take different paths to reach that objective; specifically, in their utilization of kairos and pathos

simultaneously. Ted Cruz is appealing to a patriotic or pro-military ideology whereas O’Rourke

is appealing to a wider base, both minorities and those that have disdain for injustice. Cruz’s

kairotic moment is the O'Rourke’s town hall answer and the start of the NFL season. With

kneeling inevitably becoming an issue again because of the new season, Cruz decides it is
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imperative to use O’Rourke’s words against him just as people will start to get angry about

kneeling again. The use of his own words against him gives the video more credibility than if it

were Cruz claiming to know what O’Rourke believes in. Ted Cruz also disagrees with the

protests, believing they are disrespectful to veterans. Thus, Cruz is appealing to military families,

veterans, and vigilant supporters of the military in his advertisement. He uses pathos by taking

O’Rourke’s words from his answer, such as “my short answer is no, I can think of nothing more

American”, and puts them over images of the flag and veterans. The words are put together,

cutting out the middle portion of his answer. This stylistic choice helps to put a picture and sense

of reality to the words by O’Rourke and is used to get the people of Texas to see O’Rourke as

one who opposes veterans. While Cruz effectively uses pathos in his advertisement to appeal to

patriots, O’Rourke uses pathos to appeal to a different group of people.

O’Rourke, speaking to supporters, responded to this issue using pathos as his way to

persuade voters, and capitalizes on the kairotic moment he encountered during the event he was

hosting. He was asked a question by a young man about his thoughts on the anthem protests, and

O’Rourke used that kairotic moment to offer his explanation for why he believes the protests

weren’t disrespectful to this country or veterans. He accomplishes that by employing pathos, like

Cruz, to explain his stance on the divisive issue. O’Rourke describes the reason for the protests,

police brutality, and appeals to an ideology of injustice by speaking about how unarmed black

men are being killed at inconceivable rates in this country. This example is powerful because it

evokes sadness and a sense of injustice in society that most people can acknowledge is the reality

in this country. He uses these specific examples also because he understands that to succeed he

will need minority vote, and this topic and these issues are important to minority populations.
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Cruz and O’Rourke use similar techniques, such as kairos and pathos, but they also differ in the

way they attempt to appeal to voters.

Ted Cruz utilizes the power of serivce and those who serve to provide an ethos to the

video while O’Rourke employs historical reasoning and logos in his argument. In the campaign

ad Cruz uses video of a Vietnam veteran speaking to a small crowd of people about this issue.

The veteran has a very credible ethos for having served this country admirably, and that ethos is

heightened by the fact that he lost both of his legs while in war. This man, who sacrificed nearly

everything, fought for the flag and this country, causing many people to have great respect for a

man like the one Cruz uses. Cruz takes advantage of that by using him to help explain why

people should stand for the anthem. The veteran, Seargeant Tim Lee, says “I gave two legs for

this country, I’m unable to stand, but I sure expect you to stand for me”. A statement like that,

from a man with the decorated service record that Sgt. Lee has is powerful and appeals to a wide

array of people. The use of Lee’s ethos also helps with Cruz’s ethos as it shows that military

members agree with him on this issue. O’Rourke, as a relatively unknown U.S. Representative,

does not have the ethos of Sgt. Lee or Ted Cruz, so he uses logos and factual arguments to help

make his claim.

O’Rourke accompanies his previous use of pathos with logos towards the latter end of his

answer by invoking the Civil Rights Movement, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. O’Rourke cites

the Civil Rights protests of the 1960s and pulls out specific instances of rebellion or resistance in

those tumultuous times to show how they are similar to the kneeling protests. He talks about his

co-worker Representative John Lewis and those who were beaten on the Edmund Pettis Bridge

in Alabama. He talks about Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat, and Martin Luther King Jr’s

protests and how they attempted to bring attention to the injustices of the times. While the types
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of injustice are different and the methods of showing them are different, O’Rourke uses these

extrinsic proofs to compare the two times and the way they protested their forms of injustice.

This use of logos and fact-based argumentation is effective to give people the context and history

needed to make their mind up about the issue and explains why the proofs lead him to where he

falls on the issue. Cruz and O’Rourke differ in other areas of their advertisements or speeches.

In the Cruz advertisement he uses certain stylistic techniques to set a tone for the piece

whereas O’Rourke attempts to create commonplaces rather than attacking Cruz’s perspective.

The video Cruz produced has a slow song underneath that creates an eerie and solemn tone. That

choice highlights how Cruz views the protest, as sad and disrespectful, and hopes to get the

audience to feel the same way as he does. He also uses specific images throughout the ad such as

images of veterans and tweets of praise from “Hollywood elites”. That phrase has become a

conservative commonplace, one that indicates that those in Hollywood and the coast as out of

touch with everyday Americans. He attaches O’Rourke to those people to try and get ordinary,

middle-class people on his side. The decision to use pictures of veterans or servicemen and

women gives a visual of who Cruz is trying to show he supports and who he believes O’Rourke

does not support and even disrespects. The pictures of tweets from people like Ellen and Khalid

are used in a way to paint O’Rourke as not cognizant or aware of Texas values and ideals, while

also serving as a dog whistle to conservative voters that dislike the LGBT or black communities,

which Ellen and Khalid represent respectively. As Cruz is using these stylistic choices to paint a

grim image of O’Rourke and people who believe what he does, O’Rourke attempts to reach to

those who disagree and create commonplaces.

O’Rourke understands how divisive this topic is and how it can easily become an ugly

topic to debate. Therefore, he prefaces his answer with attempts to bridge gaps between the two
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sides and explain to those that oppose him that he respects their opinion. He says, “reasonable

people can disagree on this issue, and it makes them no less American to come down on a

different conclusion on this issue”. He is trying to portray himself as a person who does not

simply write off those who disagree, he wants to accept anyone into his coalition. He also

understands that some people see the protests as disrespectful to veterans and he addresses that

issue by thanking them for their service and saying how they helped fight for the freedoms

people exhibit in this country. These two examples of at least acknowledging the other side and

the reasons they see it that way, are in attempt to show himself and understanding and a person

who is willing to listen. Those characteristics are important in politics, he knows that, and he

uses these attempts at healing and creating commonplaces to create those attributes.

National Anthem kneeling is a difficult issue to address simply because of how people

portray the two sides of it. One side is seen as racist and the other is seen as non-patriotic and un-

American. These two men effectively address the issue using various rhetorical techniques to

emphasize their stances. Both men saw a moment they could take advantage of and they took it,

they evoked emotion in their constituents and they held true to their values in the process. A

topic so divisive often curtails into slanders from both sides that deepened the political divide in

this country. Neither men went down that path in these pieces, they took the high road and

because of it they more effectively expressed their position.