Former President Barack Obama cast Vice-President Kamala Harris on Tuesday night as the inheritor of the political movement he created, saying her candidacy had rekindled the hope that propelled him to the Oval Office 16 years ago.

In back-to-back speeches at Democratic National Convention in Chicago, former First Lady Michelle Obama and her husband, the 44th President, brought thousands of Democrats to their feet time and time again, using the chants of “Yes, we can” to revive the spirit of the 2008 election.

“Now the torch has been passed,” Barack Obama said, evoking the words of John F. Kennedy at his 1961 inaugural, months before Obama was born. “Now it’s up to all of us to fight for the America we believe in. And make no mistake: It will be a fight.”

It was the first of many warnings that the wave of enthusiasm and rising poll numbers for Harris might not be enough to avoid a tight outcome in 11 weeks, and that former President Donald Trump would try to manipulate the numbers and steal the election unless Harris won an overwhelming victory.

“We don’t need four more years of bluster and chaos,” Obama said. He later needled Trump for what he called “the childish nicknames and crazy conspiracy theories and weird obsession with crowd size. It just goes on and on”.

If it was Michelle Obama who most electrified the audience, it was her husband who made the case that Harris’ candidacy was an extension of his own.

And in the vast hall of the United Centre, the enthusiasm for that era contrasted in tone and power with the farewell given the previous night to President Joe Biden.

Yet it was lost on no one that Barack Obama has played a role in pushing Biden, his former vice-president, to abandon his candidacy and turn the race over to Harris, who is 22 years younger than the sitting President.

For all the enthusiasm among Democrats for the Obamas, history suggests that their ability to transfer their own popularity to another candidate is limited.

Obama came to national prominence in 2004, giving a keynote address to the Democratic convention in Boston as it nominated Senator John F. Kerry to take on President George W. Bush.

Yet Kerry lost, narrowly.

New York Times News Service