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Obama showed his human side, Cincinnati Democrats say

As thousands of delegates to the Democratic National Convention celebrated the re-nomination of Barack Obama for a second term as president, Ohio Senate Minority Leader Eric Kearney of North Avondale said the president showed "great courage" in his acceptance speech.

"It took great courage for him to use that line from Abraham Lincoln,'' Kearney said from the floor of the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte.

He was referring to a line near the end of the president's acceptance speech where he said that he has changed as a human being in the years he has been in the White House and acknowledged the pressures he faces every day.

He did so with a quote from Abraham Lincoln, who said, "I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go."

"That was courageous,'' Kearney said. "You do not hear presidents speak in those terms."

State Rep. Alicia Reece of Bond Hill said that Obama "was very real, very human in his speech."

"He acknowledged that there is still work to be done and he made it clear that much has been accomplished," Reece said.

"In essence, he said he is president, but he is not God,'' Reece said. "He acknowledged he may make mistakes and that the road is long and hard but he made it clear he has a steadfast faith in the American people."

That, Reece said, "is a little different from Mitt Romney who has one liners and no plan for the long term. The president took the politics out of it tonight and talked as a visionary, as a leader."

Kearney said there was "a really practical side" to Obama's speech as well, where he laid out specific plans for a second term, including creating over one million new manufacturing jobs over the next four years and cutting net oil imports in half by 2020.

Reece said she, like Kearney, was impressed by the humility Obama showed Thursday night

Howard Wilkinson is in his 50th year of covering politics on the local, state and national levels.