‘Never Been More Hopeful For America’

06 Sep, 2012

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — His re-election in doubt, President Barack Obama conceded only halting progress Thursday night toward fixing the nation’s stubborn economic woes, but vowed in a Democratic National Convention finale, “Our problems can be solved, our challenges can be met.”

“Yes, our path is harder — but it leads to a better place,” he declared in a prime-time speech to convention delegates and the nation that blended resolve about the challenges ahead with stinging criticism of rival Mitt Romney’s proposals to repair the economy. He acknowledged “my own failings.”

“Four more years,” delegates chanted over and over as the 51-year-old president stepped the podium, noticeably grayer than four years ago when he was a history-making candidate for the White House.

At the start of his speech, Obama accepted his party’s nomination for a second term, saying voters face the clearest choice at any time in a generation.

He said that America has been tested by the cost of war, a troubled economy and crippling political gridlock.

He called the election a choice between two different paths for America and two fundamentally different visions of the future.

Obama said that Republicans are calling for tax cuts to solve every problem. While he supported breaks for the middle class, he says he doesn’t believe tax cuts for the wealthy would generate jobs or pay down the deficit.

Obama said job gains in the manufacturing sector over the last two years have reversed a decade of declines. He says the nation needs to invest in job training and education because it’s the gateway to a middle-class life.

On foreign policy, Obama accused Republican challenger Mitt Romney of wanting to take the nation back to what he called an era of blustering and blundering.

The president’s speech was the final act of a pair of highly scripted national political conventions in as many weeks, and the opening salvo of a two-month drive toward Election Day that pits Obama against Republican rival Romney. The contest is ever tighter for the White House in a dreary season of economic struggle for millions.

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