Circumstances

Democratic Party presidential primaries

Barack Obama delivered his “Yes We Can” speech in a gym hall in New Hampshire on 8th of January, 2008 during the primary elections. This famous speech is now known as “Yes We Can”.

The speech was given in the Nashua South High School Gym after Obama lost New Hampshire to his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton by a small margin. In the US, each of the two major parties (Democrats and Republicans) first holds primary elections to select their candidate for the US Presidency.

At this point, Obama was still Senator and his main rival candidate from the Democratic Party was Hillary Clinton. All of these aspects are suggested through a short line in which he congratulates her for winning: “Well, first of all, I want to congratulate Senator Clinton on a hard-fought victory here in New Hampshire” (ll. 5-6).

In the beginning of the electoral campaign, Obama was not considered likely to win. However, by the time of the speech, Obama had gained significantly more popularity among voters, and the ...