Character, words, or audience?

In Aristotle’s Rhetoric, there are three “modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word” (181).  There is the “personal character of the speaker,” “putting the audience into a certain frame of mind,” and the third is on the “proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.”  It makes me wonder, though, which of these three modes affects persuasion the most? Is it an equal effort, that the personal character of the speaker that uses words to put the audience into a certain frame of mind, or does it vary?  “We believe good men more fully and more readily than others,” Aristotle writes (182). So is reputation more important than words? The reputation of the speaker alone can put the audience into a certain frame of mind, so the speaker (if speaking to an audience with opposing views) would need to use very specific, striking words to persuade. But, continuing down the page, each mode of persuasion is broken down into even smaller parts. What do we focus on? What makes for the most effective speech?

Even though Aristotle says “this kind of persuasion, like the others, should be achieved by what the speaker says, not by what people think of this character before he begins to speak,” I think it would be ignorant to ignore the fact that humans are hard-wired to have opinions. Everything we say, do, perform is affected by our own personal beliefs and philosophy, even unconsciously. So, I think I would argue that the “proof, or apparent proof provided by the words of the speech itself” would be the most important aspect of a speech for a speaker to focus on.

 I’m curious what the rest of you think is the most important mode of persuasion – the reputation or character of the speaker, the audience and its frame of mind, or the logos/words of the speech.  And why?