Obama's Saturday in Philly
Posted: Sunday, October 12, 2008 2:17 PM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones
PHILADELPHIA -- Obama barnstormed across this city yesterday, holding four get-out-the-vote events where he praised McCain for seeking to tone down the negative rhetoric of recent days. But Obama also slammed the Republican's campaign for wanting to take the focus off the markets and the economy.
In the span of about six hours, Obama traveled to the majority black neighborhood of north Philadelphia; to a white working-class area in the northeastern section of the city near the famous Mayfair Diner; to the mixed community of Germantown; and finally to mostly black west Philadelphia. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey spoke at various stops. All told, the events drew some 60,000 people.
The campaign said the events, in this urban area where John Kerry won 80% of the vote in 2004, were meant to get people excited about the election and make sure they vote -- especially in areas with a lot of new registrants.
Rendell told the north Philly crowd of about 15,000 people that he wanted turnout citywide to reach 75%. Later in the day he said the city would have to beat its turn out numbers in the primaries.
"In the primary election this spring, when Barack Obama’s name was on the ballot, only 53% of the registered voters in Philadelphia turned out. Now I want you to know this 53% this election day won’t cut it," he said, urging people to get everybody they know to the polls. "No excuses for not voting. I don’t care how long the lines are. I don’t care if it’s pouring rain, this is our country’s future, it’s our future, it’s Philadelphia’s future. We must make Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States.”
At the event in the northeastern part of the city, Casey hailed Obama as a family man of deep faith, and Obama made a special point of recognizing the strong union presence in the crowd -- at one point saying he needed the votes of people of all races, ages, and income brackets, of “labor, management, I don’t care where you’re from. I need north Philly, I need all of Philly. I need everybody."
In a nod to baseball lovers, the senator pandered to Phillies fans saying that since his team -- the White Sox -- were out of the race for the pennant, he would root for the local team. Obama has long tried to cast himself as a champion of the middle class and hard-working families. And yesterday, he again modified a famous Ronald Reagan line, asking people to ask themselves not just whether they are better off than they were four years ago, but if they are better off than they were four weeks ago.
At each stop, the senator praised McCain for addressing the heated tone of the campaign in recent days and hailed him for his service. “I want to acknowledge that Sen. McCain [Friday] tried to tone down the rhetoric at some of his town halls. I appreciated his reminder that we can disagree while still being respectful of each other,” he told the crowd in Germantown. “I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again and I expect all of my supporters to understand this -- Sen. McCain has served this country with honor. He deserves our thanks for that. Every veteran deserves our thanks.”
But he repeatedly said his Republican rival did not understand the concerns of ordinary Americans. "Sen. McCain just doesn't get it. He's out of touch and that's why he's out of time," he told the West Philly crowd, repeating one of his campaign’s main themes.
"Yesterday, Sen. McCain’s campaign manager explained that Sen. McCain doesn’t have much to say about the market plunging. He’s not sure what Sen. McCain could say. That’s what he said!,” Obama said, criticizing the McCain campaign’s Rick Davis.
He said his opponent wanted to change the subject, attacking him rather than talking about the economy. “They want to spend the next four weeks talking about me,” he said in Germantown. “Making up stories. I mean, we’ve seen some rough stuff on TV from them. What I’ve got to explain to them is I can take it for four more weeks, what America can’t take is four more years of Bush-McCain economics.”
Pennsylvania prospects
In a gaggle with reporters in Germantown, Rendell talked about Obama’s prospects in Pennsylvania and drew a connection to Lyndon B. Johnson. "I think we're gonna do well in northeast, better than John Kerry did, because of Joe Biden and because of economy. I think he's doing superbly in central Pennsylvania, best Democratic performance in central Pennsylvania since probably LBJ in '64,” he said. “I think the southwest is still a challenge. But they have been, of all the sections of the city, of the state, they've been hit the hardest economically. So I think they're gonna, you know, resonate to the economic message better than anyone."
It was the second time this week that a local politician has invoked LBJ. Earlier in the week, when Obama campaigned in Indianapolis, a county Democratic official said the last time a Democratic presidential candidate was in the area in October was back in 1964 when LBJ visited.
Rendell said that while the John McCain of 2000 would have been hard to beat, the McCain of this election year would not be. Still, both he and Nutter warned against believing the polls, which show Obama ahead and spoke of the importance of getting people out on election day.
"As we all know, there's only one poll that really matters. The polls open at 7:00 am, they close at 8:00 pm on Nov. 4th. And that's what we're gonna be paying attention to,” Nutter said. “You just you run, you run until the election is over and you know we don't get sidetracked or distracted by polls statements or anything else..."
