The 2004 Democratic National Convention took place at the FleetCenter in Boston, Massachusetts from July 26th to July 29th. Then state senator Barack Obama ran for Illinois’s Class 3 Senate seat and already garnered the attention of Democratic Party officials and organizers for his charismatic personality and wit. Organizers chose Obama to give the July 27th keynote address because of his youthful look and high levels of party activist support and these organizers thought Obama would energize the convention crowd. In his keynote address, Obama laid out his idea of the American dream and America’s core belief system and argued that John Kerry was the best candidate for continuing to uphold these values and encouraged Americans to vote for him.

	Obama structured his speech in a narrative way, with the beginning highlighting Obama’s own backstory and beliefs before transitioning to John Kerry’s values and central beliefs, the core element of the middle of his speech. In the speech’s end, Obama called for a message of hope. Obama told his family history and how “[his] grandfather had larger dreams for his son” allowed for him to speak to the convention crowd tonight (¶2). This structure allowed Obama to tie his background into a larger message of John Kerry’s vision of America. An America with valued and rewarded work, affordable health care, energy independence, and secured constitutional freedoms (¶9). John Kerry grounded his beliefs on this idea of America as a land of opportunity and as a place where anybody can make their way to the top through hard work and perseverance. Obama then also used Kerry’s beliefs to segue into a message of hope that the American voters should have, a politics of hope that goes beyond “blind optimism” (¶14).  A hope not just that John Kerry will be the next President, but a hope in America’s future, where hard-working American values allow for life stories like his and so many others.

	Keynote addresses reiterate the central idea or message of the convention or conference. Thusly, Obama’s speech served not only to convince voters to elect John Kerry as President, but to also convince voters that Kerry was the better candidate for core American values. He highlighted these values in the opening of his speech, describing America as a “beacon of freedom and opportunity” and as a place with “a faith in the simple dreams of its people” (¶2, 5). Obama made the case that this election was of grave importance and that Kerry’s election will “reaffirm our values and commitments” (¶6). Obama compared the values of Americans across the country to beliefs Kerry holds. He recounted the people he met across Illinois and affirmed that “they know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to,” and later stated that “John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded” (¶7, 9). This comparison illuminated Obama’s purpose of showing that Kerry’s values are fundamentally core American beliefs in order to convince people to vote for John Kerry.

	Obama’s keynote address speech sought to appeal to both towards the convention crowd and the American public at large. The keynote address at party conventions served to energize the crowd and get them even more excited and hopefully inspire them to continue donating, canvassing, volunteering, phonebanking, or working with the campaign in some manner. Obama urged the crowd to “feel the same energy… urgency… passion… and hopefulness” that he does and that “if we do what we must do” then John Kerry will win the 2004 election (¶16). He did not explicitly tell the audience to continue working on the campaign, for party activists on the floor already knew what Obama meant when he called on them to do what they must do.

	Obama, however, did not just address the convention floor. People across the ideological spectrum watch party conventions and related media coverage. Because of this, Obama reached out not only to reliable Democratic voters and the liberal base of the party, but included Republicans and Independents in his audience. Firstly, he directly addressed them in saying “fellow Americans- Democrats, Republicans, Independents… we have more work to do” (¶6). But even without this direct acknowledgement, he urged political unity and emphasized the strength of America as a nation in order to appeal to Republicans and Independents directly. He highlighted how “there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America- there’s the United States of America,” to go against the partisan divide (¶13). Obama chose not to draw attention to more contentious and partisan issues that faced the 2004 election because of his bipartisan audience who held different views on these political stances. When he addressed the Iraq War, Obama simply said “there are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots that supported it” (¶13). He did not take an active position on whether he or Kerry personally supported or opposed the war. He simply said that Kerry will “keep America safe and secure” but did not elaborate on what that entails (¶11). Because of Obama’s widened and bipartisan audience, he highlighted Kerry’s service as a Navy lieutenant in the Vietnam War as liberals, conservatives, and moderates admire military service. He described Kerry as someone “who embodies the best this country has to offer” because of his “heroic service in Vietnam” (¶8). Obama and Kerry already had the support behind the liberal party activist base and did not want to alienate potential conservative or moderate support in the keynote address, as his audience again encompassed the general voting public and those politically active.

	Throughout his speech, Obama primarily presented himself as the personification of the American dream. At the very beginning of his speech, he acknowledges that his “presence on this stage is pretty unlikely” because of his background (¶1). The fact that somebody who’s family background comprised domestic servitude and small African villages can make a prominent political career in America emblematized, in Obama’s view, the American dream that John Kerry will fight for. Obama also played the persona of a messenger at times, recounting the stories of others. He told the audience the background of his own family, the beliefs of people in the collar counties outside of Chicago, and the story of a young veteran named Shamus (¶1, 7, 10). His storyteller persona allowed Obama to appear more personable and in touch with everyday Americans.

	Throughout his speech, Obama maintained an inspiring and optimistic tone. Near the very beginning of the speech and towards the conclusion of the speech, he invoked imagery of light. He affirmed that America is both a “beacon of freedom and opportunity” and that “a brighter day will come” (¶2, 16). Most people tend to associate light with prosperity and so by invoking imagery of light, the audience immediately made the connection to Obama’s strong positive convictions. Towards the end, where Obama’s main point was that America needed to embrace a politics of hope, Obama repeated the words “hope” and “believe” several times (¶14, 15). This repetition served not only to support his message about the kind of politics America needs to embrace, but continued building off of the positivity that Obama espoused earlier.

	Obama employed a number of rhetorical strategies to engage the audience and provide evidence for his speech. Obama extensively used parallelism and repetition to emphasize his points and maintain a constant cadence throughout. Obama repeated “that we can” followed by principles and examples of personal freedom Americans enjoy a total of four times (¶5). This parallelism sought to portray America as an idealistic land of liberty and highlight freedoms that the American public often takes for granted. He elaborated with the repetition of “more to do for” followed by groups of people or specific people who have contributed a lot to our country but feel left behind by our current political system (¶6). Obama did this to not only provide numerous examples of people dissatisfied with the Bush administration, but to get the audience to empathize with and show compassion towards those who are struggling financially. When transitioning to discussing John Kerry’s ideals and values, Obama similarly employed parallelism when starting each sentence with “John Kerry believes” to strengthen Kerry’s own convictions (¶9). Obama needed the audience and the general voting public to wholly believe in Kerry and thus explicitly drilling the point of Kerry’s convictions served to strengthen Obama’s support for Kerry’s campaign. Obama’s parallelism also underlined a message of unity. With the repetition of “if there’s a” followed by a vulnerable citizen, Obama gave examples that allowed the audience to further see why the public needed together as a nation (¶12). In calling upon the exploitation and struggle of everyday citizens, Obama argued that issues such as illiteracy, poverty, and policing affected the wellbeing of all Americans, including himself, even if these issues are not personal. Obama also compared the hope that John Kerry and John Edwards had for the public to inspirational stories about hope in various moments in time (¶14). He spotlighted this hope to further inspire and rally the audience, while it also served to provide examples of the intensity of the hope Kerry and Edwards had in the public. Once again, Obama used parallelism to strengthen someone’s convictions, however, this time Obama outlined his own beliefs through repeating “I believe” (¶15). Obama employed this technique to compare his own beliefs to a previously strengthened Kerry. He bolstered his own image with this to garner support and enthusiasm for his own Senate campaign. Obama finished his speech with yet another example of parallelism when highlighting what he hopes the audience feels through repeating “the same… I do” (¶16). This final use of parallelism served as a call to action for the audience. Obama wanted the final note of his speech to be the support and enthusiasm he hoped the audience would feel. He chose to have this message of hope be his final words as it remained in the minds of those watching and shored up enthusiasm for the Kerry-Edwards ticket.

	While Obama most extensively relied on parallelism, he also used allusions to help reinforce his argument that Kerry was the candidate America needed at this pivotal moment. At the very beginning of his speech, Obama referred to Illinois as the “land of Lincoln” to lend himself credibility (¶1). Through invoking Lincoln, Obama immediately gave him a sense of importance while also setting the stage for the rest of his speech. Obama followed this invocation with a central speech message that urged country unity and compassion for others, a message that rang similar to Lincoln’s message during the Civil War. Similarly, Obama calls upon the Declaration of Independence as a form of American pride (¶4). He used the Declaration of Independence as another example of what makes America unique and exceptional, creating an image of American pride. After directly referencing Kerry’s military service earlier in the speech, Obama alluded to Kerry’s rank in the Vietnam War when depicting “the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta” (¶14). Obama chose to only passively reference Kerry’s service so as to not rely on it too heavily while still boosting Kerry’s heroism.

	Obama drew heavily on description and personal anecdotes as well. These provided evidence to Obama’s claims while making Obama appear to be more of an everyday person than an out of touch politician. His own personal backstory of how his family immigrated to America in search of a better life provided a crucial framework for Obama’s argument that America was a unique land of opportunity (¶1, 2). In addition, Obama used personal anecdotes of people he personally met before such as union workers, poor fathers, poor intelligent women, collar county voters in Illinois and Shamus the veteran (¶6, 7, 10). He did this to show that he talked to voters previously and knew their concerns well, lending himself a greater sense of credibility in the minds of the audience.

	Through all of these rhetorical techniques employed by Barack Obama, Obama’s 2004 Democratic National Convention speech aimed to unify the country in supporting John Kerry for President. Obama’s speech structure, bipartisan audience, enactment of the American dream, inspiring tone, parallelism, allusions, and personal anecdotes all served to illustrate Obama’s vision for America and how John Kerry was the candidate our nation needed to protect it.