Obama Made His DNC Debut 20 Years Ago. He's Returning To Make The Case For Kamala Harris.

Barack Obama was days shy of his 43rd birthday and months from being elected to the U.S. Senate when he stepped onto a Boston stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

A state lawmaker from Illinois, he had an unusual profile to be a headline speaker at a presidential convention. But the self-declared “skinny kid with a funny name” captivated Democrats that night, going beyond a requisite pitch for nominee John Kerry instead to introduce the nation to his “politics of hope” and vision of “one United States of America” not defined or defeated by its differences.

Kerry lost that November to Republican President George W. Bush. But Obama etched himself into the national consciousness, beginning a remarkable rise that put him in the Oval Office barely four years later. And now, eight years removed from the presidency, Obama returns Tuesday night to the DNC as the elder statesman with a different task.

Speaking in his political hometown of Chicago, the nation’s first Black president will honor President Joe Biden’s legacy after his exit from the campaign while making the case for another historic figure, Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s poised to be a significant moment as she takes on former President Donald Trump in a matchup that features the same cultural and ideological fissures Obama warned against two decades ago.

“President Obama is still a north star in the party,” said Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who credits the 44th president with helping her become her state’s first Black woman lieutenant governor.

Besides Harris herself on Thursday, Stratton said, no voice this week is more integral to stirring Democrats, reaching independents and cajoling moderate Republicans than Obama.

“He knows how to get