How do political orators create rhetorical communities in which fantasy themes of the past and the present combine into proposals for solutions in the future? How does a contemporary political leader lead the people to construct a new symbolic reality? METAPHOR AND CHANGE redefines the concept of metaphor as it applies to politics and illustrates the use of the metaphoric-transfer model to analyze political communication. The model innovatively combines George Lakoff's approach to conceptual metaphor and Ernest Bormann's symbolic convergence theory to provide a holistic, eclectic approach to rhetorical analysis. Delgado Figueroa applies the model to the political rhetoric of Puerto Rico's charismatic and transformative leader Luis Munoz Marin between 1948 and 1952, when he successfully used metaphor in chained-out fantasy themes to change attitudes toward the island's social and economic future. In the process he also connects the use of metaphor, to reveal and conceal social reality, in the rhetoric of movements on the left and on the right, as well as of governments such as Cuba, Puerto Rico and the United States.