--- title: State of the Union Echoes Obama's 2004 Convention Speech description: Returning to old themes and admitting a disappointment canonical: https://time.com/4178469/state-of-the-union-obama-convention/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-13T04:42:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T14:04:40.099Z article:section: Politics og:title: Obama's Last SOTU Mirrors His 2004 Convention Speech og:description: With one huge difference og:url: https://time.com/4178469/state-of-the-union-obama-convention/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7fbcde80d058ba92/698878e98e060136bf4641b1/president-barack-obama-state-of-the-union-9.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2792 og:image:height: 1571 og:image:alt: President Obama Delivers His Last State Of The Union Address To Joint Session Of Congress og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Obama's Last SOTU Mirrors His 2004 Convention Speech twitter:description: With one huge difference twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7fbcde80d058ba92/698878e98e060136bf4641b1/president-barack-obama-state-of-the-union-9.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Obama's Final State of the Union Echoed His 2004 Convention Speech > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Jan 13, 2016 4:42 AM UTC  President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill Jan. 12, 2016, in Washington. President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill Jan. 12, 2016, in Washington. Evan Vucci—Press Pool  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Jan 13, 2016 4:42 AM UTC In the final moments of the last State of the Union of his Presidency, Barack Obama returned Tuesday to the lofty idealism that propelled him into the national spotlight at the 2004 Democratic Convention. Obama’s keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention called for national unity, an end to the divisions between “red state” and “blue state” mentalities that divides America, and a renewed commitment to hope as the engine of American politics. “There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America,” he said, before adding: --- > “” --- That was the speech that launched the then-state Senator from Illinois to national fame, beginning the speculation about an Obama presidency and anchoring him a rising star within the Democratic party. On Tuesday, in his last State of the Union as President, Obama returned to similar language and themes, including similar parallel sentence construction, repeated vignettes of ordinary Americans, the same examples that subvert the entrenched political divisions that have taken root in a polarized political climate. Read it for yourself: --- > “” --- The irony is that this hopeful rhetoric suggests a national unity that even Obama acknowledges never quite materialized. Earlier in his speech Tuesday night, Obama said his failure to stitch together the American political divide was among the few regrets of his presidency. “Our public life withers when only the most extreme voices get attention,” he said. “It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency — that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4178469/state-of-the-union-obama-convention/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4178469/state-of-the-union-obama-convention/"},"headline":"How Obama's Final State of the Union Echoed His 2004 Convention Speech","datePublished":"2016-01-13T04:42:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T14:04:40.099Z","description":"Returning to old themes and admitting a disappointment","url":"https://time.com/4178469/state-of-the-union-obama-convention/","keywords":["state of the union","Obama","President Barack Obama","Illinois"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7fbcde80d058ba92/698878e98e060136bf4641b1/president-barack-obama-state-of-the-union-9.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7fbcde80d058ba92/698878e98e060136bf4641b1/president-barack-obama-state-of-the-union-9.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Obama Delivers His Last State Of The Union Address To Joint Session Of Congress","caption":"President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill Jan. 12, 2016, in Washington.","creditText":"Evan Vucci—Press Pool","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/state-of-the-union/","name":"state of the union"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4178469/state-of-the-union-obama-convention/","name":"How Obama's Final State of the Union Echoed His 2004 Convention Speech"}}]}] ```