Economy key during Obama’s Virginia trip
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama began a two-day Virginia campaign swing Tuesday in a community with the state’s highest unemployment rate, telling a Martinsville audience that he will take aggressive steps to improve the plight of economically-distressed communities that are reeling from plant closings and layoffs.
“I’m not saying that every job is going to come back to Martinsville just because I’m elected president,” Obama said in a town hall-style meeting at Patrick Henry Community College’s Virginia Motorsports Technology Center. “I’m not saying that suddenly all of the schools are going to be fixed. But what I can do is I can say that I’m going to wake up every day thinking about you and thinking about how to make your life a little bit better.”
More than 300 people invited by Obama’s campaign filled folding chairs in the uncomfortably warm building to hear Obama, who hopes to become the first Democratic presidential candidate in 44 years to carry Virginia. Obama shared the spotlight with former governor and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Warner, and spoke to an audience that was surrounded by race cars propped on lifts.
Obama will join Gov. Tim Kaine, a possible vice presidential running mate, for events today in Chester and Chesapeake.
Obama’s campaign had billed the Martinsville event as a forum to discuss trade policies that have affected communities with manufacturing-based economies. But Obama largely stuck to broader economic themes, and said he has a more effective plan than Republican John McCain to jump-start the economy. And he said Martinsville’s ailing economy, which had relied heavily on textile and furniture manufacturing, is similar to those of struggling communities in the industrial Midwest.
Obama also questioned why Iraq is being allowed to shelter billions in oil revenues while the U.S. foots the bill for rebuilding efforts.
“We should be using some of that money to rebuild Virginia, laying roads, building broadband lines and putting people back to work,” he said.
Obama argued that McCain will continue the economic and trade policies of President Bush, and used a rhetorical question to frame the contrast between the candidates.
Warner’s focus on economic conditions in rural areas was cited by Obama’s campaign last week when Warner was chosen to deliver the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. Warner said Martinsville was an appropriate stop for Obama.
He said that Virginia has the highest disparity from top to bottom of any state and bemoaned job losses in Southside and central Virginia’s manufacturing sector.
But he also underscored the importance of those regions in Democrats’ efforts to flip the state for Obama.
“Virginia may be the key to deciding the future of America,” Webb said to a roar of applause and stomps. “This part of Virginia may well hold the key to the election here in Virginia.”
Obama spoke for just over an hour, repeating many of the themes he’d addressed in Martinsville for the larger Lynchburg audience. He also spoke about attacks in recent weeks, saying that Republicans had circulated ads and rumors “denying my faith as a Christian, or denying my patriotism as an American.”
“The folks in charge haven’t been very good at governing, but they have been very good at campaigning,” Obama said. “They will run negative ad after negative ad, attack after attack, with the goal of making you lose focus on the issues and their failures and try to focus on me and to make me out to be a risky, scary guy.
They cast Obama as a captive of Democrats who would advocate tax increases and greater government spending, and argued that he could not get the economy out of its rut.
Referring to communities such as Martinsville, McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin said McCain has acknowledged that “globalization doesn’t automatically help everybody.”
Theresa Foster, a Martinsville resident and former college administrator, bemoaned the fact that young people don’t return to communities like hers after getting college degrees. Obama cited the community college’s motorsports program as an example of the kind of investments that can help young workers develop skills tied to local economies.
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Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 10:14 pm under