Political Processes & Rhetoric – Page 46 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

New Law School Poll Results Offer Insight as the Race for Governor Takes Shape

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:January 27, 2014
Post category:Marquette Law School Political Processes & Rhetoric Public

It is still a bit over nine months until Wisconsin’s election for governor in November and the major parts of the campaigns, especially the expected heavy rounds of television advertising, are far from beginning. So Professor Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, cautioned against reading too much into the first round of polling in 2014 as results were released Monday.

That said, the results attracted attention in political and news circles across Wisconsin and beyond when they showed Gov. Scott Walker, the Republican incumbent, had a six percentage point lead over Mary Burke, the only major Democratic challenger. In late October, the Law School poll found Walker was leading Burke by two percentage points.

Franklin noted that in both polls, Walker was the choice of 47% of those polled. However, in October, Burke got support from 45% and in the new results, based on polling from Jan. 20 to 23, she came in at 41%.

Logos, Ethos, and Pathos in Persuasive Writing

Post author:Lisa A. Mazzie
Post published:January 27, 2014
Post category:Legal Writing Political Processes & Rhetoric Public

In the second semester of their first year, students make the switch from objective to persuasive writing. It’s a switch that some students welcome because they like the idea of arguing a position rather than having to be objective. As students learn, though, there’s more to persuasive writing—or at least more to good persuasive writing—than just arguing a position.

At their core, objective and persuasive legal writing share many of the same traits, such as maintaining the small scale organizational paradigm we refer to as CREAC (a/k/a IRAC). Because lawyers use that paradigm to advance their arguments, students need to master it, which makes the structure of the argument look similar to objective writing. But students need to make other, subtler changes in their writing (and thinking) to persuade effectively. It’s often challenging to succinctly explain these more subtle differences, but one easy way is to introduce the “why” behind the differences, which in turn helps explain those differences. Good persuasive writing argues a position by using a combination of three ancient rhetorical techniques: logos, ethos, and pathos.

Social Position and Attitudes about Income Inequality

Post author:Amber Wichowsky
Post published:December 23, 2013
Post category:Political Processes & Rhetoric Public

Over the last four decades the gap between rich and poor in America has widened. According to economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, the share of pre-tax income held by the top 1% of US earners has increased dramatically since the 1970s; in 2012, the top 1% held nearly a quarter (23%) of total pre-tax income. To be sure, liberals and conservatives disagree about the causes of inequality and government’s responsibility to address growing income disparities. My contention here is not to weigh into these debates, but rather to examine attitudes about income inequality more broadly. What do Americans think about this growing inequality and what, if anything, should be done about it?

Public opinion data can provide some insight. For example, the General Social Survey (GSS) polls Americans on whether respondents think “income differences in the United States are too large.” The data suggest that over the past 25 years, a majority of Americans have consistently rated the income gap as too large. There has also been a modest uptick in public concern over that period, as actual income differences have increased. The share of respondents who “strongly agreed” that income differences are too large nearly doubled between 1987 (15.7%) and 2010 (27.1%), though the change in the overall share of respondents who either “agreed” or “strongly agreed” was not nearly as dramatic (58.5% in 1987 versus 64.6% in 2010). Opinions on the matter have also become slightly more polarized.

Ascribing meaning to these public opinion data can be tricky though because Americans have varying understandings of the real distribution of income in the US. One study asked respondents to first estimate the actual income distribution and then to construct their ideal distribution. Both the estimated and ideal distributions of wealth were vastly more egalitarian than the status quo. And interestingly, the authors found remarkable consensus across demographic and partisan groups. But does this mean Americans want government to intervene to decrease income inequality? Although the ideal income distributions constructed by respondents looked more like Sweden than the United States, would more Americans support a Swedish-style welfare state if only they knew the true extent of income disparities? The evidence here is mixed.