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Obama kicks off campaign in Ohio with Cleveland stop at Tri-C East
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BY: MARILYN H. KARFELD Senior Staff Reporter
Democrat Barack Obama kicked off his 2008 presidential race in Cleveland this week, becoming the first White House hopeful to campaign in the state.
With a huge red, white and blue banner declaring “Obama Rocks” draped from the gymnasium balcony at Cuyahoga Community College’s Eastern Campus, the Obama tour combined the deafening frenzy of a rock concert with the synchronized cheering of a sporting event.
“O” thundered one half of the 1,700 people crowded into the gym.
“Bama” the other side bellowed back.
Hundreds more were turned away and had to watch the event over TV at adjacent campus buildings.
Waving homemade “Ba-Rock the House” signs and blue Obama ’08 placards, the diverse crowd cheered as the junior senator from Illinois struck familiar Democratic themes: help for the hardworking, struggling middle class; fair trade; and energy policies emphasizing alternative fuels.
But none of that can happen until “we bring an end to the war in Iraq,” Obama, 45, told enthusiastic supporters in his half-hour speech. He called for a phased withdrawal, with all combat troops out of Iraq by March 31, 2008.
Although he was not in the Senate in 2002 when Congress voted to authorize the Iraq war, unlike his chief Democratic rivals, Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards, who both voted to fund the invasion, Obama pointed to his early opposition to the conflict.
As an Illinois state senator that year, he said that Iraq “was a bad idea” and that without evidence of weapons of mass destruction, invasion was an “open-ended commitment with no exit strategy.”
The crowd roared its approval, as he said, “It’s now time to give Iraqis their country back.”
With over 3,100 American soldiers dead and thousands more badly wounded, the war has also diminished America’s reputation all over the world and created more terrorists, said Obama. The son of an American mother from Kansas and a Kenyan father, he also urged humanitarian and moral commitment to ending the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
Alluding to heavy Republican losses in the November midterm election, Obama said that Americans voted for Democrats to oppose the Bush administration’s Iraq policies.
Speaking often in the rhythmic cadences of a revivalist preacher, Obama added, “It’s not enough to reject what has been. We have to embrace a vision for the future and create a new America.”
The problems America faces are well known, he said: 46 million people without healthcare insurance; young people with poor math and science skills left behind in a global economy; climate change threatening the planet.
The solutions, such as preventative health care and early childhood education, are also evident, he said, but not realized because insiders and lobbyists write the laws in Washington, D.C. “It’s not that we don’t know how to educate,” he said. “It’s because we’ve decided as a country there are some young people we don’t have to educate.”
He pledged that “by the end of my first term (as president), there will be universal health care for every American.”
Obama, a U.S. senator for only two years, did not address his lack of experience in national and international affairs. A Quinnipiac University poll in January showed Clinton beating Obama in Ohio 38% to 13%, with Edwards, Sen. John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, getting 11% of the vote.
The first presidential primary is still nine months away, and nearly half the states will vote for a Democratic nominee before Ohio even holds its primary on March 4, 2008. But Ohio, which played a deciding role in the 2004 election, will likely find itself the center of attention once again as Democratic and Republican candidates converge on the state.
Those lucky enough to get inside the Tri-C gym waited over two hours for Obama to appear. Not all of those standing in the hot gym were sold on his candidacy. Several people, citing Obama’s relative inexperience, told the CJN that they were intrigued with Obama’s candidacy and were curious to hear him speak but were not supporters.
Another man said he expected Clinton to win the Democratic nomination but did not think she could beat the Republican nominee, whoever that would be. He wanted to see if Obama was a better option.
Even if he wins the election, Obama told the crowd, he can’t change the country alone. He urged his listeners to get their friends to register to vote and help build consensus in America.
“I am an imperfect vessel for all your hopes and dreams,” the senator said. “At times I am tired, I falter, I make mistakes. The election is not about me. It’s about you.”
Change can happen, he said, citing the end of slavery, the success of women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement, and the space program’s achievement in putting a man on the moon.
He told the story of a 105-year-old woman who attended a speech he gave while running for the U.S. Senate. An African-American born in Louisiana in 1899, the woman had lived through lynchings, Jim Crow laws, the Depression and two world wars. Yet she remained confident that “the world as it is is not the world as it has to be,” Obama said.
The Tri-C rally capped a day of fundraisers in Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland, which reportedly raised over $600,000 for the presidential hopeful. Still Obama asked those in the crowd to realize “you do own this thing” (his election campaign) and to “pony up $5 or $10. I don’t care how poor you are. You’ve got $5.”
mkarfeld@cjn.org
With a huge red, white and blue banner declaring “Obama Rocks” draped from the gymnasium balcony at Cuyahoga Community College’s Eastern Campus, the Obama tour combined the deafening frenzy of a rock concert with the synchronized cheering of a sporting event.
“O” thundered one half of the 1,700 people crowded into the gym.
“Bama” the other side bellowed back.
Hundreds more were turned away and had to watch the event over TV at adjacent campus buildings.
Waving homemade “Ba-Rock the House” signs and blue Obama ’08 placards, the diverse crowd cheered as the junior senator from Illinois struck familiar Democratic themes: help for the hardworking, struggling middle class; fair trade; and energy policies emphasizing alternative fuels.
But none of that can happen until “we bring an end to the war in Iraq,” Obama, 45, told enthusiastic supporters in his half-hour speech. He called for a phased withdrawal, with all combat troops out of Iraq by March 31, 2008.
Although he was not in the Senate in 2002 when Congress voted to authorize the Iraq war, unlike his chief Democratic rivals, Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards, who both voted to fund the invasion, Obama pointed to his early opposition to the conflict.
As an Illinois state senator that year, he said that Iraq “was a bad idea” and that without evidence of weapons of mass destruction, invasion was an “open-ended commitment with no exit strategy.”
The crowd roared its approval, as he said, “It’s now time to give Iraqis their country back.”
With over 3,100 American soldiers dead and thousands more badly wounded, the war has also diminished America’s reputation all over the world and created more terrorists, said Obama. The son of an American mother from Kansas and a Kenyan father, he also urged humanitarian and moral commitment to ending the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
Alluding to heavy Republican losses in the November midterm election, Obama said that Americans voted for Democrats to oppose the Bush administration’s Iraq policies.
Speaking often in the rhythmic cadences of a revivalist preacher, Obama added, “It’s not enough to reject what has been. We have to embrace a vision for the future and create a new America.”
The problems America faces are well known, he said: 46 million people without healthcare insurance; young people with poor math and science skills left behind in a global economy; climate change threatening the planet.
The solutions, such as preventative health care and early childhood education, are also evident, he said, but not realized because insiders and lobbyists write the laws in Washington, D.C. “It’s not that we don’t know how to educate,” he said. “It’s because we’ve decided as a country there are some young people we don’t have to educate.”
He pledged that “by the end of my first term (as president), there will be universal health care for every American.”
Obama, a U.S. senator for only two years, did not address his lack of experience in national and international affairs. A Quinnipiac University poll in January showed Clinton beating Obama in Ohio 38% to 13%, with Edwards, Sen. John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, getting 11% of the vote.
The first presidential primary is still nine months away, and nearly half the states will vote for a Democratic nominee before Ohio even holds its primary on March 4, 2008. But Ohio, which played a deciding role in the 2004 election, will likely find itself the center of attention once again as Democratic and Republican candidates converge on the state.
Those lucky enough to get inside the Tri-C gym waited over two hours for Obama to appear. Not all of those standing in the hot gym were sold on his candidacy. Several people, citing Obama’s relative inexperience, told the CJN that they were intrigued with Obama’s candidacy and were curious to hear him speak but were not supporters.
Another man said he expected Clinton to win the Democratic nomination but did not think she could beat the Republican nominee, whoever that would be. He wanted to see if Obama was a better option.
Even if he wins the election, Obama told the crowd, he can’t change the country alone. He urged his listeners to get their friends to register to vote and help build consensus in America.
“I am an imperfect vessel for all your hopes and dreams,” the senator said. “At times I am tired, I falter, I make mistakes. The election is not about me. It’s about you.”
Change can happen, he said, citing the end of slavery, the success of women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement, and the space program’s achievement in putting a man on the moon.
He told the story of a 105-year-old woman who attended a speech he gave while running for the U.S. Senate. An African-American born in Louisiana in 1899, the woman had lived through lynchings, Jim Crow laws, the Depression and two world wars. Yet she remained confident that “the world as it is is not the world as it has to be,” Obama said.
The Tri-C rally capped a day of fundraisers in Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland, which reportedly raised over $600,000 for the presidential hopeful. Still Obama asked those in the crowd to realize “you do own this thing” (his election campaign) and to “pony up $5 or $10. I don’t care how poor you are. You’ve got $5.”
mkarfeld@cjn.org
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