President Obama was right in defining Mitt Romney early, far earlier than many political analysts even thought was helpful at the time. Doing so set a narrative and allowed the major themes of the campaign to sift their way towards an electorate that had not yet started listening, but was subconsciously already hearing.
We knew he couldn't run on Hope again. When the re-election season began, the economy didn't have the slivers of sunshine, through the clouds, that it has now: 7.8% unemployment, net job creation, high consumer confidence, a rising stock market, and the highest levels of new housing construction and permitting in years.
We knew he couldn't run on Change again. As people, we all tend to sieve progress through the limited filter of our own experiences, and with so many people still hurting, the case for the long game would have been too abstract to be effective with most Americans months ago.
But now that things are getting better and we're, as Clinton famously said, starting to "feel it", Obama is returning to that electrically hopeful romance we fell in love with four years ago.
An opening case made early on in late Spring, a middle game played nearly perfectly throughout the summer, and a decisively commanding series of Fall debate performances now behind him, President Obama is now making his closing argument–and it's that same brand of tear-jerking optimism we all need after a decade spent at war and reeling from these troubled times. It's been a tough pill to swallow, with the working and middle classes bearing the brunt of the pain, but now it's time to rebuild our nation and, as he says, move America forward.
The last thing we should do is turn our back on the only man for this job: President Barack Obama, who, in our nation's darkest hour in a generation, has remained vested in an audaciously hopeful vision of what America can and should become. It's an honor to have had him as our President, and it will be an honor to have him serve us one more time.
That's the right path.
Chip in.