Change without hope is hopeless. Senator Clinton is learning this the hard way, as her campaign risks floundering because her full-throttle embrace of “change” is tinged with anger, not optimism. Just moments after declaring during the ABC News/Facebook debate that “we need somebody who can deliver change,” Mrs. Clinton complained that “we don’t need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered.”

But hopes are what this election — any election — is all about. Leaders inspire hope, and the change they deliver rests on the premise and even the promise that there’s reason to hope for more.

Senator Obama has this down pat. He talked about “hope” so much after winning the Iowa caucus last week that he sounded a lot like his current opponent, John Edwards, did back in 2004 when he accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president — with the theme “Hope is on the way” repeated endlessly. Perhaps Mr. Edwards would be in better shape this time around if he’d stayed with that message rather than embracing the politics of anger and fury.

Almost on cue, as Mr. Edwards shifted away from hope Mr. Obama, embraced the idea. Surely it’s not a coincidence that Mr. Edwards’s former consultant David Axelrod — perhaps the best in his class (he even had the good sense to bolt quickly from Fernando Ferrer’s doomed mayoral ambitions here in the city) — is now whispering about hope into Mr. Obama’s ear. (For other examples of how Mr. Obama is “poaching” from Mr. Edwards, check out The Boston Globe’s political Web log.)

“Hope is the bedrock of this nation,” Mr. Obama said after winning Iowa. “Years from now you’ll look back and say this was the moment, this was the place where America remembered what it means to hope.”

I share Mrs. Clinton’s confusion about what a lot of Mr. Obama’s “hope” really means in practical terms. But the meaning may be beyond the point.

Consistent inspiration and sincere optimism is alluring and addictive, particularly during this period defined by the end of a war, continuing risk of terrorism, and new economic uncertainty. Change is obvious. Leadership is the essential part of change that offers voters hope the future will be truly better and not simply different.

Michael J. Fox articulated this idea best in the 1995 film “The American President,” when, playing a presidential advisor, he told Michael Douglas, who was playing the president, “People want leadership, Mr. President. They’re so thirsty for it, they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.”

That’s what hope can do.

Mrs. Clinton is understandably frustrated that Mr. Obama’s nebulous sand may have more traction than the record she has amassed during “35 years of making change.” But voters aren’t convinced by looking back at her experience that they have reason to hope for the future.

This divide between “change” and “hope” also presents a cautionary tale for Mayor Bloomberg if he makes the unlikely but increasingly likely decision to run for president.

Simply talking about what’s wrong with the two-party system won’t work. “The candidates are unwilling to face the big issues, and take the risks, and give it straight to the public. And that’s not good for democracy, and it’s certainly not good for America,” Mr. Bloomberg observed after the caucus results were tallied last week.

Mr. Bloomberg’s plea for a postpartisan platform that puts people ahead of parties has real potential if he holds carefully to the hopeful side of that message. There’s a risk that being an equal opportunity critic of both Democrats and Republicans will come across as negative and downbeat — considering most Americans identify with one those parties. After all, Mr. Bloomberg did dip into his bottomless piggy bank once before in a quest to end the two-party system in New York City. Voters here crushed that effort by 2-to-1 margin in 2003.

Now five years after Mr. Bloomberg failed locally he’s going national with his campaign to take party politics out of politics, including an appearance today in Oklahoma to lay out what voters can hope to expect if politicians focus on real issues without worrying about party labels. Mr. Bloomberg brings a lot to the discussion if he can present solutions that lead to opportunities and thus give us all reason for, yes, hope.

“My opponent spends his time pointing out problems,” Mr. Bloomberg observed just days before he won re-election as mayor in 2005, “and my focus has been on coming up with solutions.”

That’s the right tone. All Americans share certain common goals and aspirations that Steve Forbes neatly wrapped into a campaign slogan of “hope, growth and opportunity” during his 1996 presidential effort. And who can’t literally hear in their heads the sound of Jesse Jackson begging us all to “keep hope alive”?

Hope is thriving in Arkansas. Who’d have thought America would have two presidential contenders, Bill Clinton and Michael Huckabee, in the same era from the small Arkansas town with a population of 10,467? Perhaps one day a candidate will hail from a town called Change.

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