Speech keeps hope alive, but the voters need to see change

It was always going to be the hardest of speeches and the easiest of speeches, because we would compare it with the flights of oratory four years ago in Denver, and with Mitt Romney seven days ago. In that contest, Mr Romney never stood a chance.

Did Barack Obama flinch from his original message of hope and change? He did not, but standing in a circle of white stars on a stage of blue, the President suggested that hope and change had never been about him at all. “It was about you,” he proclaimed.

“My fellow citizens — you were the change.” When he listed achievements during his four years in office he didn’t take credit. “You did that,” he said, unveiling, perhaps, a new version of “Yes we can.” He added: “I have never been more hopeful about America. Not because I think I have all the answers. Not because I’m naïve about the magnitude of our challenges. I’m hopeful because of you.”

This was Mr Obama’s Declaration of Inclusiveness, which he believes will draw undecided voters to his side. He offered it as a guiding philosophy for America, a mirror image of the vision spelled out by the Republicans in Tampa last week. “We believe in something called citizenship,” Mr Obama said.

“A word at the very heart of our founding, at the very essence of our democracy, the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another. We don’t think that government is the source of all our problems — any more than are welfare recipients, or corporations, or unions, or immigrants, or gays or any other group we’re told to blame for our troubles.”

Mr Obama highlighted Mr Romney’s Olympic gaffe in London: “You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can’t visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally.” He mocked his rival’s prescriptions of lower taxes and smaller government: “Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations and call us in the morning!”

But this was also a hard speech, as it would always be set against his record which, on the economy, is patchy. His only real option was to say that under him things will get better than they were under the last president, and better than they would under his rival. His fate will hang finally on how many voters are willing to take him at his word.