Obama Seeks to Transfer Campaign's Spirit to Challenges Ahead

Evoking Historical Calls for Perseverance, Inaugural Address Urges Determination

In the speech that marked the nation's transfer of power, President Obama attempted yesterday to achieve a second transference: turning the spirit that drove his campaign to the newer, much larger and more diffuse task of getting a troubled country back on track.

With nearly 2 million people spread out before him and waiting on the parade route nearby, Obama reached into the crowd and tried to summon the same determination he had inspired in one basketball gym after another on the campaign trail, using the same underdog terms.

"What is required of us now," he said, "is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition . . . that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."

During the campaign, the equivalent sentiment was delivered as: "Nothing worthwhile in this country has ever happened except somebody, somewhere was willing to hope."

But the stern tone of yesterday's speech underscored Obama's challenge in rallying an entire nation the way he inspired the electorate in politically critical states.

On the trail, Obama's speeches were electrified by the improbability of his candidacy as a black rookie senator running against some of the best-known politicians in the country. Supporters rallied to his repeated calls to overcome the odds and achieve a very clear goal: getting him elected.

That goal was met, leaving Obama yesterday to try to marshal the same sense of mission to a task much harder to define. Stepping into what has been called the loneliest job in the world, he was determined to maintain his link with the people who had gotten him to this point, signaling that he still needs their energy in order to succeed.

He echoed his earlier words setting his supporters against the doubters.

In his campaign stump speech, he had said, "If you are not willing to settle for what the cynics tell you you have to accept, but instead are willing to reach for what is possible, then I promise you . . . we will remake this country and we will remake the world."

Yesterday, it was: "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them -- that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply."

Obama also repeated his campaign warning against the perils of petty gamesmanship. On the stump, he called for a politics "not about tearing each other down," but "based on practicality and good old-fashioned American common sense." Yesterday, this call translated as: "We come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."

But as much as Obama tried to carry over the spirit of the campaign, it was apparent in his serious tone that the next four years will be harder work.