CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- What a difference four years can make. In 2008, Barack Obama took the stage under a summer sky before 80,000 ecstatic supporters at Denver’s Invesco Field and accepted his party's historic nomination for president.This year the violent remnants of a hurricane have forced a similarly planned event indoors, a fitting omen to an election not being waged with soaring rhetoric, but instead being fought in the trenches with negative ads and slogans wielded like cudgels.Obama cruised to victory 10 weeks after his Denver convention, promising a weary nation hope...

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