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FL, Scandia residents hear Obama’s message |
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Wednesday, 06 February 2008 |
Don Heinzman
ECM Staff Writer
Barack Obama mounted the speaker’s stand and looked up and around the Target Center and saw 20,000 people on their feet cheering for him and his message of hope and change Saturday. “What an unbelievable crowd. What a sight all of you are, ” he exclaimed.
The Democratic presidential candidate had just been flown in from Idaho where he had spoken to 15,000 people, while the polls were calling his race with Hillary Clinton in Tuesday’s primary election too close to call.
Jane Freeman, 87, widow of former Minnesota Gov. Orville Freeman, introduced him as the one “who could lead the next great generation in the 21st century.”
She recalled how her husband had given the nominating speech for John F. Kennedy at the Democratic convention in 1960.
The rally was one of four by major candidates during the past three days.
Hillary Clinton, who is battling Obama for party endorsement, made an appearance Sunday afternoon at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. She spoke to a crowd of about 4000 and promised to make health care affordable. She also urged international cooperation to protect the environment.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made a stop in Edina on Saturday night, just hours after Obama spoke at the Target Center. A rally of 900 supporters was reported.
Texas Congressman Ron Paul visited the University of Minnesota on Monday for a rally of his Republican supporters. A crowd of some 4000 turned out for the Paul rally.
Obama speaks
Speaking without notes and jabbing with his left hand, Sen. Obama told the cheering crowd, “I’m running because of the fierce urgency of now.”
“This is a defining moment in our history,” he said. “Our nation is at war, people are working harder to get by. We have children who are left behind unable to compete in a global economy.”
The audience erupted when he said, “We cannot wait to bring an end to this war in Iraq to bring our troops home. We cannot wait.”
All across America he said, people are hungry for some one else.
“People want change from the bottom up like “Paul Wellstone who believed what I believed in.“
He said many discouraged him from running, saying he couldn’t raise the money, couldn’t get institutions to support him, couldn’t get young people to vote and told him to wait until “they boiled the hope out of him.”
The biggest gamble, he said, is having the same old folks doing the same old things over and over again somehow expecting different results. “I prefer we look forward. The stakes are too high. We need to turn the page and write a new chapter in American history.”
Words resonate
That resonated with Bruce Nelson of Forest Lake.
“ I haven’t been this excited about a candidate since John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King,” Nelson said. “He is someone who can pull the world together.”
Bob Bernard of Scandia agreed.
“With Obama we have an opportunity to do away with a lot of historical divisions and the partisanship in the country,” Bernard said.
“He has a Kennedy approach to organizing and inspiring people to work together to solve common problems.”
On the issues
Obama conversed with the crowd.
“We are a decent and generous people. If we can join together and get behind the divisions and push back the special interests and challenge ourselves to do better there is no problem we cannot solve.”
He said change does not come easily. “This will be a choice between the past and the future.”
Change “we believe in” has to be earned. “It requires that we work together and overcome real differences.”
Such change he said requires hope. His opponent, he said criticizes his emphasis on hope as being naïve.
But he said, “Nothing worthwhile has ever happened, except somebody somewhere was willing to hope.”
Obama talked of workers whose jobs have gone under and have been stripped of their pensions. With his voice rising, he said, “If you work in this country, you should not be poor.”
He spoke about teachers who have to work a second job and buy school supplies with their own money. “I will reward teachers for their greatness by giving them higher salaries.”
The crowd applauded as he talked about the need for young people to be good citizens and not be judged solely by results of standardized tests. “We want children to learn art and music and literature and science and be well-rounded citizens.”
Turning to college students, he said college should be affordable for every student in America. Every child should be rewarded a $4,000 tuition credit. In return students can do some kind of community service.
Matt Scott from Eagan, a college student at St. Thomas, agreed that money spent on a war he opposes “could have put every American through college.”
About America’s security, Obama said, ”My job as commander in chief will be to keep you safe. I will not hesitate to strike against those who will do us harm.”
After praising the troops and the need to respect them when they return, Obama said part of keeping America safe is to use the military wisely.
“The war in Iraq was unwise,” he said to loud applause. “That’s why I opposed that war from the start because I knew it would be a distraction from finishing the job in Afghanistan and would fan the flames of anti-American sentiment.”
The war, he said, has cost thousands of lives and $2 trillion and has not made us more safe. That money he said could have built every bridge, road, school and hospital put people back to work, sent kids to college and trained more nurses and doctors.
Obama said he doesn’t just want to end the war. He wants to change the mindset of war, to change the politics of fear, and work together for a common purpose.
Contrary to the pundits who said he shouldn’t negotiate with those leaders of countries we don’t like, Obama said. All the leaders in Washington told him that would be irresponsible and not to do that. He replied, “Watch me.”
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