Post-midterms discussion

I'm going to use this op-ed by Eileen McNamara in my rhetoric class today, just to wrap up our midterm elections and rhetorical situations "unit." We've been looking at midterms-related rhetoric from the perspectives of the rhetorical situation, including Lloyd Bitzer's and Richard Vatz's classic texts, Mary Garrett & Xiaosui Xiao's important but under-cited discussion of discourse traditions, and Jenny Edbauer Rice's influential article on rhetorical ecologies. So to end it, today we'll see what rhetorical texts we can bring in that were written after the midterms and do a brief in-class analysis of them. I'll start with McNamara as an example. 

On a somewhat related note, as I was walking to class yesterday, I was enjoying the 75 degree weather. Then I thought about the election and the day's warm weather. The election is sort of like the weather. Sometimes if you get a warm day in November, it's easy to think, "maybe winter won't come this year." But it always does. As McNamara concludes, "All we have is now. That is all we ever have. Democrats, be bold."