Obama speaks in North Dakota
Posted: Saturday, April 05, 2008 1:17 PM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan
GRAND FORKS, ND -- Obama won North Dakota handily back on February 5th, but the presidential hopeful made a pit stop in the state yesterday afternoon to greet the crowd that helped add to his delegate lead.
"Wow uffda!" Obama exclaimed on seeing the crowd. Uffda is a Norwegian term meaning, "Oh my!" More than 15,000 people had filled the stadium at the University of North Dakota to attend the state's Democratic convention.
Obama received a hockey stick from the North Dakota Sioux Men's hockey team, presented by Senator Byron Dorgan, who told him he knew what to say that when he was asked who was the leading men's championship hockey team.
"I want to congratulate the University of North Dakota Men's Hockey Team for making it to the Frozen Four. I want to wish them luck in their game next week against Boston College," Obama said on receiving the gift. "I am deeply honored and thankful to get that hockey stick."
"It will have a place of honor in my office but I promise you I will not wield it because my hockey game is worse than my bowling," he told the crowd, referring to his now-famous excursion in Pennsylvania.
Speaking from prepared remarks, Obama took a swipe at Clinton's criticism of the caucus process and the Clinton campaign's dismissal of Obama's win in red states, saying it has no effect on his electability in November.
"I know there's been some talk that maybe states like North Dakota don't count all that much in this process," Obama said as the audience booed. "Some people think that Democrats can't win in North Dakota. Some people think it's just a fly-over state. That caucus states really aren't fair. Well, I'll tell you what -- we didn't fly over North Dakota, we landed. We didn't write [off] North Dakota, we competed in this caucus. We won this caucus, and we will keep competing in this state all the way to November," he promised.
Senator Clinton, however, also took time to come to the state party convention. She was scheduled to speak after Obama.
Hitting the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, Obama joked that McCain's only solution to fiscal problems was "tax cuts." He said the approach was "not a policy" but "a dogma, a tired and cynical philosophy that says there's nothing this nation can do or should do for workers…"
In closing, Obama commemorated Dr. Martin Luther King's death, as he had earlier in the day in Indiana. Pointing to the historical nature of his own campaign, he told the crowd that King would have said the country had become "more just" if he had seen a potential black presidential nominee speaking to the all White crowd in Grand Forks.
"And 40 years later, he would look out over this audience, he would look out at me standing here, he would look at the progress that's been made in America and he would say, you see -- that arc is bending towards justice. We've become a more just society, a more equal society, a more fair society."
