President Obama dusted off his 2008 campaign message for a women’s leadership event in Washington Friday.
In a speech at the Women’s Leadership Forum at the Marriott Marquis, Obama said he was asking them “the same thing I asked in 2008. I’m asking you to choose hope.”
“Sometimes I think Washington is the capital of cynicism,” he added.
And for good measure, he added another aphorism from his campaign days: “Cynicism is a choice. Hope is a better choice.”
The message was a change from Obama’s more muted rhetoric as president, a throwback to promises to fundamentally change the way Washington operates in his first campaign.
Obama also used the speech to portray Republicans as out of touch with the public and outdated in their approach to women’s issues.
“It’s not political,” Obama said, hitting back at GOP contentions that the White House was falsely sounding the “war on women” charge.
“We’re talking about half the population,” the president argued. “We’re talking about families that depend on that half of the population.”
