Washington, Oct 28 : Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has promised to restore economic prosperity and a sense of “higher purpose” to a tired, embattled nation. 

“We are one week away from changing America,” the Democratic presidential candidate proclaimed, campaigning with the confidence of a contender nearing victory. 

Obama returned to the soaring oratory of his first days as a candidate. With the luxury of a lead in the polls, Obama’s goal was to remind voters of why he ran in the first place - and how he differs from his Republican rival, John McCain, CBS News reported. 

“In one week, we can choose hope over fear, unity over division, the promise of change over the power of the status quo. We can come together as one nation, and one people, and once more choose our better history. That''s what''s at stake,” Obama said. 

The campaign called Obama’s speech nothing less than a closing argument. The jury is out, though, until the election on November 4, and McCain vows to pull out a late victory. 

Obama made a strategic choice to give this speech in pivotal Ohio. He struggled to connect with working-class voters here during the primaries and lost the Ohio primary to New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. 

No Democrat has won the presidency without Ohio’s support since John F. Kennedy in 1960. 

Obama, an Illinois senator, has accused McCain of resorting to smear tactics in a desperate attempt to win votes. 

Unlike in other key states, Obama has struggled to sustain a big lead in Ohio despite pounding McCain with TV ads and building a strong get-out-the-vote operation. 

Ohio, which has 20 electoral votes, never really recovered from the post-September 11 recession. Long a manufacturing bastion, Ohio has lost almost 250,000 factory jobs since 2000. The unemployment rate is at 7.2 percent, well above the national average of 6.1 percent. 

Pennsylvania is the only state that Democrat John Kerry won four years ago that both candidates are expected to visit before Election Day. With 21 electoral votes, it hasn’t voted for a Republican president since 1988, but McCain is working the state aggressively. (ANI)