WASHINGTON (AP) – Nine years ago to the day, Barack Obama stood before the Old State Capitol in Springfield and announced his run for president, declaring that “the ways of Washington must change.” On Wednesday, Obama returns to the Illinois capital at the twilight of his political career, pleading once again for the type of national unity that has eluded him as president.
Obama’s speech to the Illinois General Assembly is a homecoming rich with nostalgia, as the president retraces steps he might have walked two decades ago as a young state senator from Chicago. White House aides said Obama wanted to return to the place his career started to discuss how the U.S. can “build a better politics” in which Americans aren’t so starkly divided by race, religion or political party.
It’s a goal that Obama readily concedes he was unable to achieve during two terms in the White House.
In his final State of the Union address last month, Obama lamented that rancor and suspicion in Washington had gotten worse, not better, since his election. Rarely one to admit defeat, Obama called it “one of the few regrets” of his presidency.
“There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide,” Obama said.