Metaphors in the discourse of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney during the 2012 US presidential campaign

This article aims to find, analyze and interpret some the most memorable metaphors used during the 2012 presidential campaign in the United States. Barack Obama's and Mitt Romney's speeches were full of notable metaphors which may have influenced their chances of achieving the main goal - the presidency. A comparative approach for analyzing the metaphors is applied in this research. The positive or negative messages addressed by metaphors during the 2012 campaign may have played a role in the outcome. Analyzing the major metaphors associated with each campaign is the best way to see the successes and missteps in metaphor usage. The metaphors "Forward", "There are no red states or blue states", "Yes We Can Again", "Killing Big Bird", "Obamacare" are studied in this article.