Obama's "A More Perfect Union" Speech: Analysis & Impact

A More Perfect Union, 2008

Classification

• Political speech, delivered in Philadelphia during the contest for the Democratic party presidential nomination.
• An attempt to address tensions between ideals of equal citizenship and freedom expressed in the Constitution, and America's history of slavery and segregation.

Authorship

• Barack Hussein Obama (1961)
• The first African American to become President of the United States of America.
• Son of a Kenyan man and a woman from Kansas, raised by his grandparents.
• From 1997 to 2004, he was a Democratic Senator for Illinois.
• In 2009, he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Context

• 2008 Primaries for the Democratic Candidacy were held.
• During the former President George W. Bush's administration, he had become increasingly unpopular due to:
• The Iraq War (2003) and the war on terrorism against the axis of evil (Iraq, Iran, and North Korea).
• Hurricane Katrina management.
• Global economic recession.
• General resentment on the administration of health, education, immigration, and disregard for the Kyoto Protocol.
• 11th September terrorist attacks.
• In 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President, and Reverend Jeremiah Wright (his former pastor) was part of the campaign team.
• Excerpts of Wright's past sermons were broadcast to discredit the campaign, which became a national issue.
• The excerpts denounced the USA and accused the government of crimes against black people.
• This Obama speech sought to place those comments in a historical and sociological context.
• Jeremiah Wright was immediately withdrawn from the campaign team.

Aims

• The major objective was to dissociate the campaign from the Reverend Wright's sermons.
• Separate Obama's candidacy from either black or white extremism and hatred.
• He wanted to encourage the largest amount of citizens as possible to raise their country's flag in shared feeling.
• Emphasized blacks and whites alike, as equals, and not blame them for their resentment towards each other.
• Tried to lead them to a unity in one common goal.

Results

• Immediate consequences were immensely beneficial for his campaign.
• He won the Democratic presidential primaries, defeating Hillary R. Clinton.
• He finally became the 44th President of the United States of America.
• His calling to unity seems to have succeeded; in 2012, Obama was re-elected.
• His promise of a Health Care reform has become a diluted reality.
• While 15 million people will remain uninsured, most of them illegal immigrants, it is expected that about 32 million will benefit from the new law.
• But there are main points of his electoral campaign which have not yielded results:
• Guantanamo is still open, and its prisoners have not had a trial.
• He is the American President who has used more aircraft in armed conflicts.
• Has not increased taxation on highest incomes.
• The new immigration law and the limit to gun sales law are still pending.