In an attempt to categorize the many individuals of this world there are personality tests to be taken to associate ourselves and others with the results. There are those who are "Thinkers"; these are the types of people who make decisions based on logic and they hold truth over tact. Then there are "Feelers", when these types of people make decisions, they are usually heavily tied to the emotions of themselves and others. When trying to persuade, knowing the type of person they are in regards to "thinkers" and "feelers", will greatly aide in the overall outcome of agreement versus disagreement. The rhetoric appeal of pathos may be made to an audience of Feelers, or of logos for an audience of Thinkers. When President Obama delivered his remarks on a World-Class Education to the McGavock Comprehensive High School in Nashville, Tennessee, his speech depended heavily on pathos instead of logos in order to persuade the public in favor of his own opinions on the matter. There must have been a determination that the best way to persuade his audience was through the tugging of emotional stings instead of a lay down of hardcore facts.   His method to persuade the audience to agreement on his own remarks on World-Class Education was a pathos-heavy method that included personal stories of himself, recognition of the achievements of the community, and ended with a personal tale from the community.

There existed no spoken need for ethos in this speech, being the President of the United States qualifies to establish enough credibility. Immediately the speech was introduced through a personal tale of Obama's past. The scene and mood is set by relating himself to struggling students, low income, and single-parent families. No obvious sympathy card was played to increase openness, but by giving the audience a chance to relate to him he took himself off of his presidential pedestal and created a level communication field so that the people would be more open to what he is about to detail. People in general will listen more openly to their equals versus those superior to them because then they won't feel the threat of a personal power struggle; Obama has eliminated this threat by taking himself out of this level of authority and placed himself at an eye to eye level with the public for better and more open communication. Later the story includes his own mother's persistence on education, even overseas, and again relates to students with a remembrance of how tough school was for himself. The final point being that every young person in America should have the same chance to attend the best schools in the country and receive a quality education no matter what. Without the preamble of his past situation, his personal struggle with education, and then his revelation of how important education is as a whole, then the people wouldn't have been brought on the emotional tying journey. Using pathos people may have been able to emotionally connect with the beginnings of the story or the overall struggle of one man and make their own connections to Obama's story. Then due to these connections come to an agreement on the conclusion and final point made with the story. Just as Obama saw in his own revelation of how key education is, the audience can see the same because of the emotional journey they were just put through with this personal story in the speech and in the end agree because their decision is tied to such emotion.

In recent history Tennessee has been red, so the challenge presented to President Obama was how to appeal to an audience that may already be harboring negative feelings. This situation is similar to an animal that is ill-mannered towards you; the way to get them to like and ultimately listen to you is through much praise and goodwill. Barack Obama did exactly such towards his red Tennessee audience; he opens the minds and hearts of his audience through emotional praise. The pathos persuasion concept employed here is that when the subject feels good about themselves they find no loss in openly listening to what is being said by someone they initially did not like. By opening his speech with many thanks to a lot of members from the community he builds the audience's pride in the community. Mentioning "I wanted to come here today because I've heard great things about this high school and all of you," is the first instance of praise that will later be followed up with more detailed examples of their success. Near ending the speech anyone at this point would be glowing with satisfaction because of the praise they have been receiving from the President of the United States. Through this use of pathos, Obama is emotionally priming the audience to be more open to his own opinions on where a world-class education should be going. By putting them in a good mood, it keeps them in a good mood for the rest of the speech, it keeps them more open-minded to his opinions, and it increases the chances of agreement because of their good mood and open-mind.

To tie it together with a knot, President Obama closes his speech with an emotional story of success about a member of the community. By pointing out Sara and Mr. Randall in the crowd he creates a tangible connection to go hand in hand with the emotional connection he is going for with this story. This story is used to connect all the success the community has experienced, the good feelings from praise, and the concept of a good education together. Sara, her story, and her end result is what Obama wants everyone to remember as the lasting result that his plans for education will create. The audience is already feeling good about themselves and all they accomplished, they have been told how education has affected the President of the United States, and now they are seeing firsthand how a good education affected one individual close to them. Obama is tugging on emotions of others with the success story of Sara in order to make one last push for positive and agreeing feelings towards his remarks on world class education.

While in some cases the best argument is made with facts and truths, there are some people who just start to glass over when overloaded with facts. President Obama saw the fault in trying to persuade many teenagers, their parents, and teachers with the facts of education. He could have spoken about all the statistics of how Tennessee is doing well, or Nashville, or just McGavock Comprehensive High School all in terms of education, graduation, and success, but in the end all the numbers will meld together. By using a pathos-heavy strategy in this speech, by using stories from his own past, by praising the current success of the education system in Tennessee, and then tying it all together with a personal success story from the community, President Obama succeeded in creating good feeling of emotion and agreement towards his own remarks on a world-class education. Barack Obama was able to take those who had ill-feelings towards him and set them aside through praise, this then opened their minds towards the ideas Obama was speaking about on education. Then with open minds, he stepped in and permanently wedged good thoughts towards his ideas for education with a personal success story of someone close to them in the community, and with good thoughts comes agreement. Barack Obama was able to effectively persuade his audience to agree on what is a World-Class education through a pathos-heavy method of emotional connections.
