This thirty-six–page COMM 204 paper presents a comparative rhetorical analysis of Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” and Ann Richards’s 1988 Democratic National Convention keynote address, examining how each speaker employs rhetorical strategies to address political conflict and advance Democratic values. Through close textual analysis, the paper evaluates differences in context, speaker identity, and persuasive appeals to demonstrate how rhetoric functions as a tool for leadership, unity, and democratic engagement
