Emotional Obama bids long goodbye and passes baton of hope to Clinton

Part of him didn’t want to let go. Another four years would have been tempting, were it allowed. But that, he knows, would be proof of failure.

Before a roaring crowd, an emotional Barack Obama reminded Americans why he is a once-in-a-generation figure, made the case for his successor and warned that Donald Trump threatens the 240-year-old fabric of American democracy. It was an elegiac piece of political theatre that contrasted with last week’s Republican convention in which a bellicose Trump, ranting in front of his own giant image, bordered on fascist satire.

Obama had worked through six drafts of the speech and stayed up until 3.30am revising it. He reportedly dismissed the idea of a valediction like those delivered by Ronald Reagan in 1988 or Bill Clinton in 2000, saying he wanted it to be about Hillary Clinton. And it was, dutifully yet artfully, about Clinton, including a warm hug at the end when the beaming candidate herself arrived on stage. And yet it was also, inescapably, a long goodbye.

“Four more years!” came the occasional cry from delegates in the audience. As Obama, the son of a Kenyan, told the African Union last year, if he was constitutionally able to run again, he would have a decent shot. But, he also pointed out, any leader who believes they are indispensable has failed to build their nation.

Which brought him, on Wednesday, to Donald Trump and his slogan promising to “make America great again”. Obama said: “America is already great. America is already strong. And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump. In fact, it doesn’t depend on any one person.”

Having witnessed the perils of dictatorships all over the world, Obama delivered a scathing rebuke to Trump’s claim, heard down the ages from charismatic leaders, that he alone can fix the country’s broken system.

“Ronald Reagan called America ‘a shining city on a hill’,” he continued. “Donald Trump calls it ‘a divided crime scene’ that only he can fix. It doesn’t matter to him that illegal immigration and the crime rate are as low as they’ve been in decades, because he’s not offering any real solutions to those issues. He’s just offering slogans, and he’s offering fear. He’s betting that if he scares enough people, he might score just enough votes to win this election.”

There were boos from the crowd at Trump’s fear-mongering tactics. Obama, speaking in Philadelphia, the birthplace of the United States, went on to in effect compare the brash tycoon to King George III, the authoritarian monarch from whom the founding fathers declared independence.

“We are not a fragile or frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared saviour promising that he alone can restore order. We don’t look to be ruled.”

At that the delegates, waving thin blue “Obama” placards, erupted in delight.

“That’s who we are. That’s our birthright – the capacity to shape our own destiny,” he added. “America has never been about what one person says he’ll do for us. It’s always been about what can be achieved by us, together, through the hard, slow, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately enduring work of self-government.”

Clinton understood this, he said. “She knows that this is a big, diverse country, and that most issues are rarely black and white.”

It was, Obama reminded his audience, 12 years to the night since he had first erupted on the national political stage. “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America,” he told the Democratic convention in 2004. Much of that youthful optimism has since worn off: an older, greyer Obama admitted in his state of the union speech this year, “The rancour and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better.”

Indeed, the rise of Trump on the right and Bernie Sanders on the left implies that liberal America and conservative America are dug in deeper than ever in their trench warfare. Obama’s presidency has been stalled by a deadlocked Congress, never more so than over issues such as gun control. But his speech, and a highlights video that preceded it, ran through victories such as rescuing the economy, killing Osama bin Laden, reforming healthcare and legalising gay marriage.

Above all, perhaps, the first black president set a tone of tolerance and diversity, not merely by who he was but what he did.

Some values, he said, go beyond conservative and liberal. He recalled those of his grandparents from Kansas, that reddest of red states. “They’re as strong as ever; still cherished by people of every party, every race, and every faith. They live on in each of us. What makes us American, what makes us patriots, is what’s in here. That’s what matters. That’s why we can take the food and music and holidays and styles of other countries, and blend it into something uniquely our own.

“That’s why we can attract strivers and entrepreneurs from around the globe to build new factories and create new industries here. That’s why our military can look the way it does, every shade of humanity, forged into common service. That’s why anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail in the end.”

There was barely an empty seat in the arena, yet it was often hushed expectantly. Obama’s ability for soaring, lyrical oratory was a reminder why he, not Clinton, won in 2008. Perhaps he would beat her again today. But now his last, greatest gift was to pass on the torch.

“I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman, not me, not Bill, more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America,” Obama said, aware that Bill Clinton was watching from inside the packed arena. “I hope you don’t mind, Bill, but I was just telling the truth, man.”

There, before a crowd dramatically more diverse than at the Republican convention last week, was the passing of the baton from the first African American president to, they hope, the first female president, who happens to be 14 years his senior.

All that will be celebrated on Thursday. For now, parting was such sweet sorrow. “Time and again, you’ve picked me up,” Obama told the audience, his eyes glistening with tears. “I hope, sometimes, I picked you up, too. Tonight, I ask you to do for Hillary Clinton what you did for me. I ask you to carry her the same way you carried me. Because you’re who I was talking about 12 years ago, when I talked about hope – it’s been you who’ve fuelled my dogged faith in our future, even when the odds are great; even when the road is long. Hope in the face of difficulty; hope in the face of uncertainty; the audacity of hope!”