Reconstituting the Republican party Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul's speeches at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference

"Abstract: This thesis examined the ways in which Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul sought to reconstitute the Republican Party at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference. After discussing the dual exigences that faced these senators after the GOP's loss in the 2012 presidential election and the rise of the Tea Party Movement and explicating a methodology of reconstitutive rhetoric which combined Maurice Charland's theory of constitutive rhetoric and Celeste Condit's critique of concordance, this thesis analyzes the ways in which Senators Paul and Rubio attempted to reposition the Republican Party within an ideology that addressed the party's ideological discord and disconnect with the changing electorate in the United States. This analysis led to several significant implications about reconstitutive rhetorical strategies, the use of ideographs within a reconstitutive and accommodationist model, and United States political discourse."

"Reconstituting the Republican party Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul's speeches at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference"