Itani 1
Tarek Itani
Professor K. Striepe
Political Science – 1
6 August 2014
“Yes We Can”
This paper will be analyzing the political ad known as “Yes We Can.” This ad aired in
February 2, 2008, during the presidential campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain
with Obama being the first black man to ever win the presidential elections. This paper will first
focus on describing the political context of the ad, next it will actually describe the contents of
the ad and some of the tools that we’re used to appeal to the audience, and finally it will explain
why this specific advertisement was effective at what is originally set out to do. I believe that this
ad was effective because of the use of music and imagery to appeal to the emotions of the mass
audience. This was a famous political ad because of the numerous well known artists, actors, and
celebrities.
This advertisement aired in 2008 during the Obama-Biden vs McCain-Palin campaign.
The candidates in this campaigns were consisted of Barack Obama against John McCain on the
presidential side. Their vice presidents were Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. Obama represented to
democratic party while John McCain represented the republican party. The basic platform for
President Obama was the he stood for the working class and wanted to be working class to be
comfortable with him as a president. He promised change and a better tomorrow. This platform
heavily outshone John McCain as his ideals were quite the opposite. A majority of John
McCain’s views focused on military support, adapting national security, and international aid.
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His plans to eliminate Bush’s No Child Left Behind policy, were controversial. Major political
issues at the time of this campaign were the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There was
also numerous economic issues such as costs of health-care, energy, continuously increasing
unemployment and gas prices. The political ad directly supports Obama as a candidate and does
not attack John McCain. The election results ended up with Barack Obama winning the elections
and having 356 electoral votes as opposed to John McCains 173 votes. Obama had 52% of the
popular vote while McCain had 45.7%.
Throughout the course of the ad, a number of celebrities, including Obama himself, are
previewed alongside Obama chanting and singing the phrase “Yes We Can”, which was Obamas
slogan during the campaign. The message of the ad is basically saying that if we work together,
we can build a better tomorrow. The viewer sees the multiple artists and celebrities shot entirely
