Part 2 of our analysis explores the most interesting collocations in Sarah Palin's rhetoric, i.e. the words which co-occur more in a statistically significant frequency with a specific term.

In the collocation clusters you find below, the first-level collocations are colored in light-red and the second-level collocations marked in white.


1. John McCain

As is her role as the vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin spends a substantial amount of her rhetoric talking about the Republican presidential candidate, John McCain.

Palin charactizes McCain as a great man and particularly boosts his leadership qualities (leader, faith; ready, lead) and his military record (serve, uniform; commander). She portrays him as someone whose experience has bestowed him with the necessary competence to lead the nation.





In Palin's rhetoric, John McCain and a potential McCain-Palin administration stand for change, for the promise to shake up the Washington herd and for putting country first.

In this pursuit, Palin frequently invokes her and McCain's allegiance to the example and legacy of Ronald Reagan (we, believe, in, Ronald Reagan).

Despite the great challenges that America faces with regard to war and energy , she presents John McCain as a president whose core tasks would still include to help American families.


2. Barack Obama

Unsurprisingly, Sarah Palin's portrayal of Barack Obama is a little less rosy and stands in stark contrast the characterization of her running mate.

Far more than McCain, Palin zones in on the controversy around Joe the Plumber in her attacks of the Democratic presidential nominee. For her, Obama's wants to spread the wealth around and increase taxes. Her rhetoric thus portrays Obama as a threat to families, small-business owners and the newly found personifications of the American working class, Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder.

In her references to Obama, Palin also stresses the record negative campaigning by the Democratic ticket and vows that she and John McCain will continue to fight their claims.





In short, Palin's characterizes Obama as an extremely risky choice for president since, given the opportunity, he would use the economic crisis to realize policies that would cause further economic harm to the American people.


3. Alaska

In many ways, Sarah Palin's home state of Alaska serves as the positive counter-example to all the negative characterizations she has in stock for Barack Obama.

As the cluster below illustrates, Palin uses Alaska as a reference point for her economic policies, her personal groundedness and understanding of average Americans, and her achievements in the field of energy policy.





In her rhetoric, Alaska serves as a model of how she and John McCain would govern the nation. Contrary to her portrayal of the nationwide repercussions of the economic plans of the Democrats, Plain stresses that in Alaska she gave money back to the American people, reduced government spending and balanced both checkbook and budget.

To this end, even her husband Todd and his work as a commercial fisherman serve as the local equivalent of the national symbol Joe the Plumber in her campaign speeches.

The state of Alaska is thus a rhetorical tool to boost Palin's credentials to be vice president and to convince Americans that she would continue her policy of putting people and country first when in the White House.


4. Hockey Mom

Sarah Palin's image a hockey mom follows the very same rhetorical strategy of trying to establish an emotional connection and trust basis with her audience.

By portraying her as just an average mom who worries about her children's next soccer game, Palin attempts to give people the feeling that this understanding of average Americans and their interest translates is reflected in her policies.





As the cluster above illustrates, she successfully links this personal side with the agenda of John McCain and the Republican ticket as a team of mavericks that sides with the people instead of Washington or other lobbying and interest groups.


5. God

One of the remarkable features of Sarah Palin's rhetoric are the collocations when referring to god.





While she articulates her gratitude toward god and invokes spiritual blessing for the welfare of America and its people, her religious references are also tied to the worthiness and readiness of the Republican ticket, as well as John McCain himself.



6. Conclusion

The main objective of Sarah Palin's rhetoric on the campaign trail is twofold: to make the case for John McCain as the next president of the United States and to attack and draw a sharp contrast to her Democratic opponents.

In line with this mission, Palin depicts John McCain as a "great man" and underscores his experience, his military record and his competence to lead the nation in challenging times.

In contrast to her running mate, however, she does so by rhetorically engaging in a direct dialogue with her audience, thereby trying to connect to her audience and establish a feeling of collectivity (almost similar to Obama).

Palin's rhetoric is also more emotional than that of John McCain and bears characteristics of linguistic features typically associated with women. She tries to present herself as grounded in the experience of average Americans through her self-portrayal as a hockey mom, her emphasis on the importance of family, as well as her statistically very high reference to "Joe the Plumber".

In her campaign speeches, Palin uses her experience as governor of Alaska as an example of her own credibility, executive skills, and readiness to join her running mate in the White House. She also uses Alaska as a symbol of how a McCain-Palin administration would reform Washington, follow a conservative economic policy, tackle the energy crisis, and bring government "back on the side of the people" in the spirit of Ronald Reagan.

Frequently drawing on religious references when talking about her own campaign, Palin characterizes Obama as an extremely risky choice for presidency and as someone who would, given the opportunity, use the White House to realize economic polices that would cause further economic harm to the American people.