Politics: Hope, Change, and Fear

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Politics Hope, Change, and Fear President Obama launches his re-election campaign. By John Dickerson Posted Saturday, May 05, 2012, at 09:47 PM ET Barack Obama once wanted to "Win the Future." Now he's just hoping to get there. "Forward" is the new message of his re-election campaign, which he outlined Saturday in the first two official speeches of his 2012 presidential campaign. While his message still contains the old slogan's optimism of a brighter tomorrow, the force of the president's new argument is not so much that Americans could achieve greatness but that they must lock arms to keep Mitt Romney from dragging the country back to a dark past. Hope and change are still alive, said the president, referring to his 2008 election themes. But this time fear is also his running mate.  The president spoke in Ohio and Virginia, two battleground states. Though the day was billed as Obama's first official campaign day, it was really just the day that he dropped the last veil. The president, of course, has been campaigning for some time now. He's been in Ohio and Virginia a lot. For months, his domestic travel has rarely taken him outside of a battleground state. The issues he focuses on are aimed at key voting blocs. He's held regular meetings with his campaign strategists in the White House. The surest sign that he's been campaigning has been the regular denials from administration officials that the president was engaged in campaigning. What made Saturday notable, however, is that the president referred more directly to his opponent than he has before. Romney is ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate The Real Reason Bin Laden Wanted To Change Al-Qaida's Name How George Zimmerman Is Using Social Media To Bolster His Defense What Was Crime-Fighting Actually Like in Sherlock Holmes-era London?	Advertisement
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