“All that hopey changey stuff, as they say? That was real. It wasn’t something …it was real, you could feel it. You know it. It’s still there. Even in the midst of this hardship. But it’s hard. When I was in Grant Park that night, I warned everybody this was going to be hard, this wasn’t the end it was the beginning.”

“Over the past 2 and a half years,” he said, “the hope poster starts fading. But I tell you what, you travel around the country and talk to the American people, that spirit’s still there.”