Obama and Romney in the home stretch
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spent the weekend darting between key battlegrounds in a frenzied drive for votes. The final road to tomorrow's ballot is filled with anxiety and more than a little relief
In the bitter final days of the campaign, "hope" and "change" have made a comeback - at least in President Barack Obama's closing argument.
As he criss-crosses the Midwestern battlegrounds in his shirt sleeves, Obama is firing up supporters with the rallying cry of his 2008 campaign that has not been a major theme of his stump speech for months.
Republicans are "betting on cynicism", Obama told a crowd in Mentor, Ohio, on Saturday, where he declared "my bet is on hope". The word "change" appeared in his morning speech almost two dozen times.
Obama's message is hitting home with his audience as his rhetorical arc bends back to its origins. "We know what change is," he said on Saturday, his voice hoarse as a crowd in a high school gym thundered its applause. "We know what the future requires."
Since they ushered Obama into office, hope and change have taken a beating. Hard economic times, intransigence in Washington and acrimony made it easy to mock the promises of 2008.
"How's that hopey-changey stuff workin' out for ya?" former vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin asked two years after her GOP ticket lost.