Yes We Did

Al Giordano reminds us that one year ago today Barack Obama got his ass handed to him in New Hampshire.

The pressure was now on Obama. How could he possibly retake the initiative after the New Hampshire primary shocker? That same January 8 night, he took the stage in Nashua:



And with three words - "yes, we can," introduced for the first time as a call and response line in his speeches - Obama parlayed his defeat into a victory. In temperament, with confidence and calm - and with the assist of a raucous crowd that was determined not to let the setback get it down - he kept himself in the game.

I remember that speech well, and I bet you do too: it was a much-needed call back to arms on what had seemed, at the time, to be a devastatingly and perhaps determinatively bad night. "Maybe I'm doomed to always back the wrong horse," I wrote in the post introducing the speech. "But maybe not."

In a week and a half, he'll be president.