2012 U.S. Presidential Electoral Performance Review

In Barack Obama’s passionate acceptance speech for president on Nov 5th, the fierce political campaigns between him and Mitt Romney came to an end. From making speeches through television to shaking hands with potential voters, from preparing debate questions to interacting with journalists, both the incumbent president from the Democratic Party and the nominee from the Republican Party have made great efforts to present themselves as the potential president for audiences. This essay will analyze their political performances by looking at the actor(s) in this campaign, collective representation, means of symbolic production, mise en scene, social power and the role of audiences and media based on Alexander’s work on cultural pragmatics. Their performances (especially Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s performances) between the first presidential political debate on Oct 2nd and the “Big Day” on Nov 5th will be reviewed. Undoubtedly, the actors in this political campaign are Democratic Party candidate Obama and Republican Party candidate Romney. Barack Obama as an incumbent president who won the 2008 election with his slogan called “Changes we can believe in”, however, he only faces “things can be worse” by now. For him, in all the three debates, he always tried to demonstrate that he had made great efforts in the past four years, his efforts can sustain in his second term and things will get better but they also take time. However, when we look at Romney, the situation is totally different. Such a period of economic recession is a perfect timing for him who has ran business for 25 years to stand out and say “let me balance the budget”. Rather than an exhausted president who has been handling both national and international affairs for four years, Romney is more like a potent challenger who always wears a