Obama by the Numbers: Twice-Told Tales, and Nine in a Row

Compare that with Edwards's 2003 announcement speech: "I haven't spent most of my life in politics, but I've spent enough time in Washington to know how much we need to change Washington."

"We need a president not afraid to use the word 'union,' " Edwards told a steelworker audience in July 2007. "We need a president . . . who is not afraid to mention unions," Obama said a month later. Edwards, accepting the party's vice presidential nomination in 2004, said, "Hard work should be valued in this country, so we're going to reward work, not just wealth." Obama, in turn, has been heard to say, "We shouldn't just be respecting wealth in this country, we should be respecting work."

Whatever we should be respecting, Obama had a ready answer for the questions about his originality: another big primary win.

Just after 5 p.m. Central time yesterday, early exit polls pointed to a victory for Obama in Wisconsin. Ten minutes later, his campaign sent around an Associated Press article seeking to raise the stakes of its likely victory: "Wisconsin is almost the kind of state Hillary Rodham Clinton would have invented to win a Democratic presidential primary. . . . A poor performance there Tuesday would raise big questions about her candidacy."

A couple of hours after that, Obama was at Toyota Center, waiting backstage for the networks to announce his victory. On the floor, a woman in a too-tight shirt danced about the stage and led painful-to-the-eardrum cheers of "Fired up!" and "Ready to go!"

Axelrod, the Obama strategist who authored many of the phrases the candidate borrowed from Edwards and Patrick, preceded the senator to the floor. On the jumbo screen, the campaign played a music video by the Black Eyed Peas' "will.i.am." Its title, "Yes We Can," is a signature slogan of the Obama campaign -- and before that, of Deval Patrick, not to mention César Chávez and Bob the Builder.

A chant of "Yes, we can" filled the arena, and Obama, emerging underneath a banner honoring basketball great Hakeem Olajuwon, enjoyed a reception the Houston Rockets would envy. "The American people have spoken out, and they've said we need to move in a new direction," Obama told the arena.

Whoever first uttered the words that followed, it didn't much matter: On the arena floor, they were drowned out by deafening cheers.