As Barack Obama neared the Democratic presidential nomination in March 2008, he delivered an address dubbed “Renewing the American Economy.” The financial meltdown was still on the horizon, but he pointedly noted that most Americans were in the midst of a long economic slide that he said he would reverse if he were elected. “For many Americans, the economy has effectively been in recession for the past seven years,” he said in the speech, delivered at Cooper Union in Lower Manhattan.