Obama, the Candidate of the Artists: ‘Podemos con Obama’

Paulina Rubio as Scarlett Johansson; Alejandro Sanz as Will.i.am; John Legizamo as Adam Rodriguez. The “Yes we can” face-to-face with “Podemos con Obama.” Latin America is also for the United States presidency Democratic candidate, Barack Obama and, due to this, twenty people from the Latin american culture have made a new video in which, as their United States colleagues have already done, they demonstrated their support to someone who has already converted himself into the candidate of the artists.

“Your vote makes all the difference”, “Action”, “Change” and “Vote Obama” are the messages that actors like Jessica Alba, singers like Don Omar or composers like Alejandro Sanz are putting out to the more than eight million Latino voters who will have to elect next November: for change or for more of the same.

Although we don’t yet know whether it will be Obama or Hillary Clinton who will face the Republican candidate John McCain, the cultural world on the other side of the Atlantic is already clear on its candidate and its future president. The African-American aspirant is the symbol of change that their country needs, according to these Latino artists.

“Obama is our future,” assures the Mexican Paulina Rubio in the video. “A clean earth for my children,” affirms Jessica Alba. “He’s like me, a Puerto Rican,” says another artist. “We need a better world” and who better than Obama to give it.

With the guitar of Alejandro Sanz in the background and directed by the musical producer Andres Levin, the Latino artists wanted to put their mark on a campaign that has practically, from the beginning, been marked by culture.

The “Yes we can” that began to play and be seen over there in the month of February with a committed Scarlett at the front of it, gave way to dozens of demonstrations in support that culminate now in the ‘Podemos con Obama”.

All this has made it so that the aspirant for candidacy to the White House has become the candidate of artists, of actors, of singers…. “The creation of “Podemos con Obama” has been a work of love born out of the hope that Barack Obama has inspired in me, my family, my friends and my artistic colleagues to improve the United States,” indicated Levin.

The support of what is considered one of the greatest sectors, culture, is a political strategy that in recent years has been more than exploited by candidates in their electoral campaigns.

Certainly, Obama has been and is the candidate that has given the most impulse to this new tactic, but one should not forget others who like him found ia very profitable political tool in artists. It is difficult to forget Bill Clinton with his saxophone surrounded by great musicians.

But, one does not even need to go outside of the Spanish borders to find a cultural-political mix. The elections last March 9th were a clear example of this almost perfect symbiosis. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero also had his “Yes we can” translated into a very Spanish “Defender la alegría” in which artists like Joaquín Sabina, Ana Belén or Víctor Manuel “estaban con Zapatero.”

The PAZ platform received the support of Zapatero the same day of the elections, when the recently re-elected president chose the Ferraz street and the socialist seat to celebrate his electoral victory next to the artists who had demonstrated their support. Will Obama step up to the creators of “Yes We can” and “Podemos con Obama” if he defeats Hillary and then McCain?