As Jonathan Last recounts, Barack Obama’s speech Wednesday night was the most motivated, focused, and impassioned address that he has given in some time And that certainly isn’t due to his long-time love of Hillary Clinton. Rather, with Donald Trump having pulled even—or slightly ahead—in the polls, Obama is genuinely worried about preserving his liberal legacy, particularly the centerpiece of that legacy: Obamacare.

Obama’s speech was a strong one, as he effectively masqueraded as a caretaker of the project that began more than 200 years ago at Independence Hall, rather than as someone who has made “fundamentally transforming” that project his life’s mission. To hear Obama talk about it, one could almost imagine Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and the rest standing around a table and waiting to sign Obamacare, rather than the Constitution.