President Obama is talking the economy in Cleveland. You can watch the stream here. Some notes from the speech:

–Obama goofed introducing was introducing Lee Fisher as the “soon to be junior senator from the great state of Illinois – uh, Ohio.” He then explained that “I was thinking about my own — Lee Fisher is here. I used to hear that line … about the senator from Illinois. That would be me.”

–Not much new here so far (e.g., “The flawed policies and economic weaknesses of the last decade culminated in a financial crisis and the worse recession of our lifetimes”). Instead, he is repeating familiar claims about 3 million jobs created or saved by the stimulus, intransigent Republicans, etc., much of it to surprisingly tepid applause.

–He takes on House Minority Leader John Boehner directly, saying that “there were no new policies from Mr. Boehner” during Boehner’s remarks two weeks ago. “[T]here was just the same philosophy that we already tried during the decade they were in power. . .Cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations.” And so on.

–The one novel bit is the president’s focus on his family story. He opened by speaking at length about the federal government’s role in helping his grandparents secure a college educations and a home.

–President Obama just said he believes government should be “lean” and “efficient” and leave it to individuals free to make choices about “what is best for them. . . as long as it doesn’t hurt others.” (!) And then adds, with an Abraham Lincoln reference, that he believes “government should do for the people what they can’t do better themselves.”

–The president was most animated when he claimed Republican economic policies would take jobs from Americans. In a booming voice: “That is one difference between the Republican vision and the Democratic vision and that is what is election is all about!”

–Discussing the Bush tax cuts, Obama reiterated his belief that the cuts should be made permanent for the middle class. Republicans “would have us borrow $700 billion over the next ten years to give a $100,000 tax break to people who are already millionaires.”

“We should not hold middle-class tax cuts hostage any longer.”

“This isn’t to punish folks who are better off. God bless ‘em. It’s because we can’t afford the $700 billion price tag.”

A dare to Republicans: “We are ready, this week, to give tax cuts to every American making $250,000 or less.”

–Obama directs his comments again and again at Mr. Boehner.

–Summing, Obama dusts off the “ditch” metaphor one last time. The choice is between Republican policies that “drove us into the ditch” and the Democratic policies “that are slowly pulling us out.”

–Vows to fight any (phantom) Republican efforts to privatize Social Security (what about the robots? Will he protect us from the robots?)

–The health-care law is mentioned, briefly.

–”When I walked in, wrapped up in a nice bow, was a $1.3 trillion deficit, sitting right there on my doorstep.”

–”I’m keenly aware that not all our policies are popular.”

–There is no other way to describe the president’s tone but to say he has done a lot of yelling. And it sort of seems as if he is yelling at the audience when he says things like “You didn’t elect me to just read the polls and figure out how to keep myself in office. You elected me to do what’s right!” It is as if, having been told by his advisers that he has failed to communicate his case to the American people, Obama resolved to try again BUT LOUDER.

–The conclusion of the speech was the usual cliches, except — again — louder. “CHOOSE HOPE OVER FEAR! CHOOSE THE FUTURE OVER THE PAST!”