The speech hasn't changed much as Sen. Barack Obama has made his way across two crucial primary states over these last days. He starts with a joke about his 15-month campaign -- in that time, babies have been born and already are walking by now, he always says.
The questions, too -- about the economy, the war, and jobs -- are similar, but this afternoon Obama was in his own backyard, not far from where he learned to organize communities on Chicago's South Side and push for change.
"This is the closest I've been to home . . .in five days," he said to about 2,500 folks in Gary, Ind., many who had waited for hours in the driving rain to see him. "I was thinking about making a break for it."
Yet, with tightening races in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary and the Indiana primary May 6, there is no time for breaks. He'll need a big turnout here in northwest Indiana, he told the crowd that packed into Roosevelt High School's gymnasium.
Some of the people knew him way back when and thought he looked tired, his speech a little off.
Still, having him there, moved them.
"Just looking at him brought tears to my eyes," Martha Freeney, 60, said. "It's history."
The excitement of having Obama in their midst was somewhat.....
....tempered by a litany of proposals he reeled off -- $10 billion in aid for local governments, $60 billion for rebuilding infrastructure.
The Illinois senator, who leads opponent Sen. Hillary Clinton by some 130 delegates, hammered at his rivals for cozying up to lobbyists. He singled out Republican Sen. John McCain, who announced a plan for home mortgage relief today in Brooklyn, for not doing enough.
"I'm glad he finally offered a plan," Obama said. "Better late than never. Sen. McCain's solution seems a lot like Bush's plan, which is to sit by."
Obama also took on President George W. Bush, who today announced his support of Army Gen. David Petraeus' recommendation to indefinitely suspend a troop drawdown in Iraq. "There is no end in sight," Obama said.
Obama remains in Indiana through Saturday on a bus tour of the state. He is running commercials featuring him at a gas station, to highlight the increasing stresses on working families.
Nia-Malika Henderson in Gary, Ind.