Obama Pleads: "Keep Believing In Me!"

And the tooth fairy.

"If people ask you what this campaign is about, you tell them 'it's still about hope.' You tell them 'it's still about change,'" he told a cheering mass of supporters at Ohio State University in Columbus, six months and one day before the election. "I still believe in you. And I'm asking you to keep believing in me."

It's not off to a good start. He had to give his address to a largely empty stadium.

[T]he most newsworthy item of the day was not the talking points Obama delivered: it was the crowd... or lack thereof.  According to ABC News, the Obama campaign had expected an "overflow" of people.  Instead, the arena looked half-empty.  The Columbus Dispatch reports that Obama organizers even had people move from the seats to the floor of the gym in order to project a larger crowd on television.