Barack Obama took the stage in
Kokomo, Indiana today. He also made an unexpected stop in Indianapolis.
With a gas pump behind him, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama made an unscheduled stop at Joe's Junction to tackle the high gas prices.
"Everywhere I go in Indiana and across this country, I'm talking to folks who are working harder and harder just to get by," said Obama.
Senator Obama said fighting high gas prices lies in long-term investments like clean and efficient energy and changes in Washington.
"We need a president who's looking out for families in Indiana, not just what's good for multi-national corporations. And that's the kind of president I intend to be," said Obama.
"At a time when our economy is in turmoil and wages are stagnant, hardworking families are struggling to meet rising costs, and few costs are rising faster than the ones people pay at the pump," he
said.
"For the well-off in this country, high gas prices are mostly an annoyance. But to most Americans, they're a huge problem bordering on a crisis. Here in Indiana gas costs $3.60 a gallon, and across the country gas costs more than at any time in the last 30 years."
Obama targeted the oil companies which made $123 billion in profits last year. He said that while there was nothing wrong with companies being rewarded for their success, oil companies have not been innovative when it comes to energy efficiency. He said Americans are still dependent on gas because "Washington politicians didn't deal with the challenge when they had the chance."
The Illinois senator said Vice President Dick Cheney met with oil company executives on energy policy 40 times, while meeting only once with environmental and renewable groups.
He said he had already worked to curb lobbyists' power in Illinois and said that if elected as president, he would meet the challenge of reforming a broken system in Washington.
Obama said he would work to introduce a windfall profit tax to help people struggling to pay energy bills, reduce the price of oil and increase transparency in how prices are set to be sure oil companies aren't bending the rules.
Following brief remarks outlining his plan to relieve gas prices, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama answered press questions overcoming weakness with white, blue-collar Democrats, the return of his former pastor, his next moves in race to the Democratic nomination and the New York City cops' acquittal in the shooting death of Sean Bell. (
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/obama-rev-wrigh.html)
Obama disputed that a weakness with white working class voters would be an issue in the general election match up against the presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain.
"There have been concerns in Ohio and Pennsylvania, but in both those states, if you look at the polling, those Democrats are more than likely to vote for me in a general election," Obama said.
"I think there's no doubt that a campaign has to continually fine tune itself," Obama said. "This has been a long campaign and so what worked well three months ago, if you're doing the exact same thing, it might not work as well."
Responding to the Rep. Jim Clyburn's comment to the New York Times that there might be an irreparable breach between former President Bill Clinton and the African American community, Obama said "I never believe in irreparable breaches" and said the party would be unified come August convention.
"This has been a fierce contest," Obama said, "I've said repeatedly that come August, there are gonna be a whole bunch of people standing on the stage with a lot of balloons and stuff, confetti raining down on the head of the Democratic nominee and people will be excited about taking on John McCain in November."
Barack Obama offered a defense Friday against charges that he’s an out-of-touch candidate tailored more to the Men’s Vogue crowd. Nonsense, he said, he only owns four pairs of shoes. (
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/04/25/obama-just-a-regular-guy/?mod=WSJBlog)
“This is a fairly standard suit here,” he said to rebut charges that he presents himself more as a GQ cover model than a beer-drinking average joe. “I haven’t changed my approach to dressing too much.”
Obama said that his wife is amused by the charge because he buys five suits and then wears them until they’re thread bare “and then I patch them up.”
Obama acknowledged that his political rivals are trying to paint him as an elitist, but he in turn points to his biography. “It’s hard for me to figure that out given that I was raised with far fewer advantages than either of my two opponents,” he told reporters today at an Indianapolis gas station.
He pointed to his family’s roots on the Kansas prairie, sitting around a “dinner table
would have been very familiar to anyone here in Indiana – a lot of pot roast and potatoes and Jello molds.” Obama said. “So on the one hand I don’t want to go out of my way to prove my street cred as a down to earth guy” because he believes that his upbringing shows that he’s already down to earth.
He pointed to his career as a community organizer and lawyer where he worked to give people “the same ladders of opportunity that I was able to take as a kid.”
When pressed about the challenge he faces with blue collar voters, the Illinois senator said he believes voters in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania may have preferred Clinton in the primary but would be more than likely" to vote for him in the general election against John McCain. (http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2008/04/obama_i_was_rai.html)
"I don't think that there's a huge difference between black working class, white working class, suburban, urban, rural, I think people want to see the country make progress, and so what I'm going to continue to do is to present those issues that effect people's bottom lines, the issues they're talking about around the kitchen table," he told reporters outside Joe's Junction gas station. "I think that when they see what our plans are particularly in a general election compared to the approach that Sen McCain is taking, I'm confident that Americans are gonna want to move forward instead of having 4 more years of the same politics that got us into trouble in the first place."
He joked that he had on a ''pretty standard suit" when asked how he could fight the perception being put forth by his opponents that he was a "GQ"-style elitist, adding that he had four pairs of shoes and that he had just one suit when he met his wife. He acknowledged he would need to focus in the next several weeks on educating voters about his background.
"I was raised with far fewer advantages than either of my two remaining opponents," he said.
Obama also spoke about his work as a community organizer and noted that he and his wife financed their educations through student loans.
"I was raised in a setting with my grandparents who grew up in small town Kansas where, you know, the dinner table would have been very familiar to anybody here in Indiana - a lot of pot roast and potatoes and Jell-O molds," he said. "And, you know, so on the one hand I don't want to go out of my way to sort of prove my street cred as a down to earth guy. I'm gonna be fighting as hard as I can to make sure that you know, people understand why I got into this race in the first place, how I got to where I am today, and when they understand that, I think they'll recognize themselves and that my struggles are theirs and together we can change the country."
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