Speaker

The speaker of the 2008 victory speech is Barack Obama, who had just won the presidential elections and become the first African-American President-elect of the United States.

At that time, Barack Obama had been a senator in the US Congress for three years, and he had just won the election after a long campaign.

He entered the electoral race as an unlikely African-American candidate, relatively unknown to most American voters, something which he also mentions in his speech: “I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines…” (ll. 55-57). 

Barack Obama was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, a historical US party characterized by a social welfare orientation and progressive policies. Note that the Republican Party ...