It was all over the country on his campaign posters: Hope. Hope for what? That was pretty clear, too—hope for an end to wars abroad and to political bickering at home.

After eight years of George W. Bush and five years of carnage in Iraq, a vision of peace and bipartisanship appealed not only to traditional Democrats but to many independents. The fact that it was being presented by someone whose very candidacy seemed to embody the idea that the United States was making progress, persuaded many voters (and commentators) to overlook its utopian aspect. When some Clintonians, such as my former colleague Sid Blumenthal, questioned Obama’s belief that simply by offering to work with Republicans he could forge a cross-party consensus on major issues, arguing that this thinking reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of modern American politics, they were dismissed.

The battle-scarred skeptics turned out to be right, but I’m not here to belabor that point. Obama, for all his lack of realism, embodied a clear and positive message that appealed to one of America’s founding myths: the dogged belief that everything is possible, even things that patently aren’t. Of course, he learned pretty quickly. After coming to office and finding that hell would freeze over before Republicans in Congress coöperated with him, he pushed through the stimulus and Obamacare with barely any Republican votes. Both of these measures were, in their own ways, historic achievements. But now, in the fall of 2012, what does the President stand for?

Judging by the conduct of his campaign so far, Obama’s main platform is keeping the Republicans out of power—a perfectly legitimate project, to which I subscribe wholeheartedly. But what is his positive message? He’s running for a second term: what is its leitmotif? With just three weeks left until the election, the answer is not as clear as it should be.

At the start of the year, in his State of the Union address, the President said his overarching project was creating an “America built to last,” a message that had all the appeal of a washing-machine commercial. On his campaign Web site, the slogan is now “Forward”—a formulation so unoriginal and trite that Silvio Berlusconi adopted it as the name for his political party, Forza Italia. At the Convention in Charlotte, Obama invoked the concept of citizenship—“the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations.” That was sort of interesting, but it now appears to have been consigned to the White House’s dustbin for big ideas that didn’t pan out. In his closing statement at the first debate, Obama fell back on defending the middle class, a hardy old faithful that every Democratic candidate from Walter Mondale to John Kerry has adopted, and that even Mitt Romney is now trying to steal.

In lieu of outlining a program or a vision, the Obama campaign’s message has been relentlessly negative: the Republican candidate is a latter-day robber baron, and the party he represents is a redoubt of wild-eyed extremists. As it happens, there is considerable truth in both of these depictions. The private-equity business that Romney made his fortune in represents a form of über-capitalism, which, citing the gospel of economic efficiency, uses debt, aggressive management, and the bankruptcy laws to redistribute the fruits of corporate enterprise in a particular direction—upward. And the Republicans… well, we know all about them, and what most of them would like to do if they regain power: introduce more tax cuts skewed toward the rich; begin a fresh assault on the regulatory structure; engorge the Pentagon budget; appoint more conservative judges; and generally push forward their long-term project of rolling back what remains of the New Deal and the Great Society.

But whipping up fears about the Republican agenda doesn’t constitute a fully formed policy platform, especially when the Republican candidate himself is running away from some parts of that agenda as fast as he can. Take the issue of reforming retirement programs—long a key Democratic fallback. As much as the Obama campaign would love to tell Florida seniors that Big Bad Mitt is about to snatch away their Social Security and Medicare, it can’t really take this tack. In ditching the idea of private accounts, endorsing the idea of means-testing, and promising to restore the gradual cuts in spending that both the White House and the Congressional Republicans had supported, Romney has arguably moved to the left of Obama on Social Security. And in saying that any changes to Medicare won’t affect people aged fifty-five or over, he has largely neutralized that issue for the current generation of seniors.

To be sure, Romney’s effort to rebrand himself as a centrist is something of a sham. Proposing to cut income-tax rates by a fifth when you are also intent on slashing spending on Medicaid, which serves the poorest Americans, is a particularly noxious form of trickle-down economics. The idea of spending trillions of dollars more on the Pentagon when you are trying to bring down the deficit is bizarre. Then there is the Supreme Court, an area where both Ronald Reagan and George W. found it convenient to buy off the right. Why would be Mitt be any different? And I haven’t even mentioned foreign policy, or Romney’s apparent determination to give Bibi Netanyahu what would amount to a blank check.

So yes, there is plenty of material for Obama to exploit tomorrow, when he attempts to raise the alarm about his opponent. On this score, I am confident that he will do a better job than he did in Denver, when he appeared a bit discombobulated after being confronted with Mitt the Moderate rather than Mitt the Severely Conservative. While it would be folly for the President to attack Romney as aggressively as Joe Biden attacked Paul Ryan, especially in town-hall format, he is sure to be more forceful and energetic. Before the last debate, the word from the White House was that the President was above hurling “zingers.” In today’s Times, there is a report saying that Obama “instead of focusing on the nuts and bolts of debate facts… is practicing how to challenge Mr. Romney.” This time around, we will surely hear much more about Romney’s “forty-seven per cent” comments, his low tax rate, and his record at Bain Capital.

That’s all well and good—and necessary—but Obama also needs a more upbeat and persuasive message of his own. Simply attacking Romney and trying to tie him to the Republican ultra-conservatives may no longer be enough; after the first debate, moderate and independent voters might not buy it. In stressing his record of working with Democrats in Massachusetts, expressing his concern for the middle class and his belief in regulation (however hollow these may be), and in generally adopting the posture of a non-ideological businessman who has come armed with specific policies to boost the economy, Romney’s had a huge impact on public perceptions of him. If the latest survey from the Pew Research Center is to be believed, he is now narrowly behind Obama on the question of who will work with the other party, tied with him on who has the best leadership abilities, and beating him on the question of who is putting forward new ideas.