Michelle Obama talked him up, Bill Clinton talked Republicans down, and now it's up to President Barack Obama to try to talk his way into a second term with a prime-time speech to the Democratic National Convention on Thursday.
He faces enormous hurdles. Oh, voters think he's likable enough, to borrow a phrase. They like him personally quite a bit more than they do Mitt Romney, according to recent polls. But his job approval ratings haven't been above the 50 percent mark seen as critical for incumbents facing re-election. And the sputtering economy, burdened with 8.3 percent unemployment, weighs down his hopes for a second term.
Gone are the Greek columns of the Denver convention of 2008, awkward props that drew mocking fire from Republicans from the minute they were glimpsed on television. And on Wednesday organizers announced they were moving the speech from Bank of America Stadium, which seats 74,000, to Time Warner Cable Arena, which seats 20,000, citing the risk of thunderstorms.
While disappointed Democrats worried this meant no balloon drop, Republicans insisted the shift showed the 2008 bubble has burst, charging that the president feared being unable to fill the stadium. Obama aides countered that the 65,000 ticket holders, 19,000 people on the waiting list, thousands of reporters and others attending the convention meant the arena would be packed. And some noted that many of the ticket holders earned their seats by volunteering for the Obama campaign's vaunted and valuable get-out-the-vote effort — and that moving the speech to the smaller venue could alienate foot-soldiers who will be critical to victory in November.
In her speech to the convention on Tuesday, Michelle Obama pulled back the curtain on her early years with Obama, vouching for his character and the love he bears his wife and daughters, repeatedly insisting that he is "the same man" after three and a half years of political knife-fights in Washington.
Then came Clinton, who did his best to knock down Republican arguments and prop up Obama's record in facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. At times, he sounded like the smartest kid in the class explaining what the sometimes-distant professor just couldn't convey.
"Listen to me now. No president, no president -- not me, not any of my predecessors -- no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years," Clinton told the rapt audience of thousands.
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