CHARLOTTE, N.C. — After nearly four years in office, President Barack Obama asked America on Thursday night to give him a second term, in a speech reaching back to the touchstone of “hope and change” that propelled him to the White House in 2008, while also acknowledging the unfinished work in achieving that promise.
In his formal acceptance speech, the president embraced the contrast that his party had tried to draw between himself and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney throughout this week’s Democratic National Convention. Obama said the GOP only offered voters the “same prescription they’ve had for the last thirty years,” and laid out policies that he said would move America in the direction of Obama’s campaign theme: “Forward.”
“I recognize that times have changed since I first spoke to this convention. The times have changed … I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the president,” Obama told the crowd at Charlotte’s Time Warner Cable Arena, where his speech was moved after weather concerns disrupted plans for an outdoor event.
“But as I stand here tonight, I have never been more hopeful about America,” the president added, in a line emblematic of his efforts to once again stir enthusiasm in his candidacy.
The speech capped a convention designed to reignite enthusiasm with Obama’s winning voting coalition from 2008, including dozens of speeches paying testament to the president’s character and condemning Romney in the same breath.
On foreign policy, for instance, Obama ridiculed Romney as inexperienced and naïve.
“After all, you don’t call Russia our number one enemy – and not al Qaida – unless you’re still stuck in a Cold War time warp,” he said. “You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can’t visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally.”
The Democratic convention this week was constructed in part to rebut last week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., during which Romney seized on disappointment in Obama after four years, and argued “the time has come to turn the page.”
Convention speeches have served as major milestones for Obama in his path to the White House. His 2004 keynote speech as a Senate candidate rocketed him to national stardom, and Obama’s 2008 speech as the Democratic presidential nominee helped propel him to victory.
On Thursday evening, Obama nodded toward the disillusionment of the high-soaring rhetoric of his last campaign, but said that he was still moved by the “hope” that animated his 2008 bid, and asked for more time to achieve his goals.
“You didn’t elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth,” he said. “And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades.”
Republicans, including Romney, have made issue of that tarnished sense of hope. The GOP nominee, who said he didn’t plan to watch Obama’s speech, nonetheless expected it to dwell on “forgotten promises.” Romney’s campaign manager said Obama’s speech had only made “the case for more of the same policies that haven’t worked for the past four years.”
