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Did Obama pull it off with ? We won't know for days, even months. Failure can only be finally declared if he hasn't got a healthcare bill through by 1 January 2010. In part, this is what he is good at: a stirring, rousing speech full of high-minded phrases like "we came to build a future", "now is the season for action" and "we did not come here to fear the future. We came here to shape it".

He attempted to reclaim the flag for the Democrats, against critics who say he is not only wrong but unpatriotic in his plans. He said that "we lose something essential about ourselves" when helping those in need is attacked as un-American, and said that "large-heartedness, concern for others is not Democrat or Republican but part of the American character." As is, he said, more controversially, "an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in".

So far, so good. Conservatives had been calling for more substance. There was perhaps nothing new here but his list of promises did give me a clearer idea of what he wanted, and I've been hearing and reading about it for months and months. It is now there, in black and white within a 10-page speech:

• Insurance will be compulsory
• Those who have health care won't have to change what they have
• Those who don't have it, above a certain income, and big companies that don't provide it, will be fined
• Insurance companies will have to take on people with pre-existing conditions and won't be allowed to drop them when they get sick
• It won't add a dime to the deficit or be paid for out of the Medicare trust fund. The money will come from eliminating wasteful spending and taxing drug and insurance companies

There's a lot of devilish detail behind that outline, still to be pored over and defined, but the aims are clearer than before.

Most intriguing is one area that is still very cloudy. The president said he wouldn't "back down on the basic principle that if Americans can't find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice."

He says the public option, a government scheme funded by the premiums it collects but non-profit making, and hated by the right as socialism would be "an additional step we can take" to put pressure on insurance companies to provide a good, and cheaper service. But it is "a means to that end" and "we should remain open to other ideas". To me, that sounds like it's a negotiating position he is willing to sacrifice.

Has he pulled it off? Not by a long chalk, not yet. But if he persuades the public and makes deals on the hill, it could be over by Christmas.

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