Barack Obama was days shy of his 43rd birthday and months from being elected to the US Senate when he stepped onto a Boston stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. A state lawmaker from Illinois, he had an unusual profile for a headline speaker at a presidential convention. But the self-declared "skinny kid with a funny name" captivated Democrats that night, going beyond a requisite pitch for nominee John Kerry instead to introduce the nation to his "politics of hope" and vision of "one United States of America." Watch the speech here. Kerry lost that November, but Obama etched himself into the national consciousness, beginning a remarkable rise that put him in the Oval Office barely four years later. And now, reports the AP, Obama returns Tuesday night to the DNC as the elder statesman with a different task.
Speaking in his political hometown of Chicago, the nation's first Black president will honor President Biden's legacy while making the case for Vice President Kamala Harris. It's poised to be a significant moment as she takes on former President Trump in a matchup that features the same cultural and ideological fissures Obama warned against two decades ago. "President Obama is still a north star in the party," says Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton. Besides Harris herself on Thursday, Stratton said, no voice this week is more integral to stirring Democrats, reaching independents, and cajoling moderate Republicans than Obama. "He knows how to get across the finish line," she says.
Obama's most unsparing speech was his 2020 appearance at Democrats' virtual convention. Speaking on behalf of Biden, Obama framed Trump as fundamentally unfit for office. It was the most scathing indictment of a sitting president by one of his predecessors in modern US history. "This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that's what it takes to win," Obama said, almost five months before Trump's supporters attacked the US Capitol. On Tuesday, Stratton says, there is space for Obama to bring heat on Trump, talk directly to American voters, and honor the magnitude of Harris' moment. "He was a historic candidate and president. He knows what this is like," Stratton said. "There will be this sweet moment of the first Black president passing the baton."
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