Almost everyone in America appreciates a good laugh. When people face uncomfortable or serious situations, people always try to make a joke to relax everyone. There are many sayings that prove how much laughter can help people. After analyzing a plethora of articles written by John Andrews, it is easy to see his approach to rhetorical writing and how he approaches his topics. Although he often writes about politics and the Colorado government, his articles are filled with humor and creativity. As a former president of the Colorado Senate, he has an awful lot to say about the way Colorado runs it’s state and who has power where.
Andrews is not a regular contributor to the Denver Post, but he has a lot to say and says it very eloquently. You can tell from his writing that he knows a lot, but is also very sarcastically harsh and has very dry humor. Something one can definitely appreciate about Andrews is the fact that he won’t talk about something unless he actually has knowledge about the topic. He does not try to fake his way through an article by giving the reader useless words, but rather invigorates them with his personal experiences and thoughts.
In Andrews article “A modern Christmas Carol” he tells a fictional story of seeing ghosts of Christmas past after he gets in a car accident when he is distracted by an Obama bumper sticker. He writes of the visuals he sees when an old elementary school teacher leads him through defining moments in his childhood like “Stopping at several homes, she showed him classmates he'd looked down on. Peeking into a church, he saw two brothers ridiculing a less affluent family's Christmas attire”, after seeing this his teacher asks him, in not so many words if he always practices what he preaches. The article continues on like this, going through the city on a pretend helicopter ride pointing out homeless shelters and places where inner-city kids can go to be mentored. Through the article, we see Andrews mocking his “Republican” lifestyle with his large SUV and ignorance towards helping others. Although it may seem like fellow republicans would be offended by Andrews satire, appreciation for this humor can go two ways. Democrats can laugh at it because they agree with the Republican stereotype, while Republicans can find it funny because he is making fun of them, but also making fun of himself.
In this article, Andrews is focusing his writing towards voters of almost any age and people that are aware of the political happenings locally and nationally. All of his articles focus on different topics so depending on the day; his focus audience could be different. Sometimes he focuses on the problems within the school district, and for those articles his audience could be more parents of students who are in the public school system and also students who are interested in what could be happening to their education.
Because of Andrews focus on politics and government, it would be hard for an uneducated person to follow his articles. Although he talks about issues that a lot of people can relate to, sometimes it is hard to follow along while trying to understand the humor and his opinion about the situation. I had to read his writings over a couple of times to fully grasp what points he was trying to make because I was so focused on the intervals of humor.
Andrews also uses commonplaces to pull people into his articles. By theming one of his articles on the spirit of Christmas and goodwill during the holiday season, he is talking about something a lot of people can relate to and also a happy time of year when people focus on their families and often lose track of politics. By integrating policy, Christmas and humor into one article, Andrews energizes his readers to recall the idea of goodwill during the holiday season but also gets his opinion about Colorado policy into the readers mind. Every person who reads the Denver Post is probably affected by Christmas in some way, whether they celebrate it, do more business because of it, or have to resort to Chinese take-out and a movie because of it. By bringing it up in an opinion article, it gets the reader’s attention and gives them a way to relate to the author.
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