The audience...

I was totally caught off guard by the Foreword that was part of the article. I think that it added so much to the reading. The author talks about some of his rhetorical devices, which allowed me to be able to spot them throughout the reading. He explains that he is not a Republican, which promotes the idea that the article was not written to influence the audience into voting for McCain. It is also a little bit ironic that we are reading an article about the man who lost the Presidential election just last year.

The first paragraph of the article is the one that my mind kept flashing back to throughout the reading. Wallace uses McCain's strong Right ideals and the fact that McCain is a "serious hard-ass," to show that this is not a regular audience that is reading this article. It is obvious that this is written for a younger and "hipper" generation that does not value the serene nature of McCain so much as his bad-assness. I found myself laughing as Wallace used the idea of Senator John McCain whoring himself out. Wallace uses many ideas that are natural to much of the younger demographic that reads Rolling Stone, which is what this article is for. He establishes his audience within that first paragraph.

He emphasizes that McCain drawing 500 college kids at 3:00 am is absolutely absurd. But, at the same time he implies that it is not so stunning because of the younger voter turnout that occurred in the New Hampshire primaries. Wallace continually plays off of his audience and uses ideas that they are acquainted with to show what McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign was truly like.