The Rhetoric of Freedom in the US Presidential Campaign 2008

Freedom is identified as the idea that determines the American sense of exceptional national identity. Also American politicians in the United States very often refer in their speeches to American freedoms. Therefore, in this paper, I focus on the qualitative content analysis of the 2008 US presidential campaign speeches to investigate how the concepts of freedom are used in America and how they are translated into practice in candidates’ policies. Moreover, the purpose of this work is to explore the complex relationship between progressive and conservative notions of freedom on the American political scene today. Reflecting on the speeches delivered by the presidential candidates, it aims to answer the following questions: how the conservative and progressive notions of freedom differ, whether the nominees of the Democratic and Republican Parties, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, conformed to them in their statements, or have Democrats and Republicans lost their distinct perspectives on the notion of freedom, now speaking a common language.