From the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal:
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama fought back Thursday against Republican attacks during a rally under the shade of oak trees in Lancaster's Buchanan Park. As a crowd estimated at 15,000 and a horde of local, state and national media watched from the parched lawn of the city park, Obama jabbed at Republicans and their nominees — presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin — for inaccurately representing him and his proposals. … Obama's rally was held in a shady nook of the park, which is adjacent to the campus of Franklin & Marshall College. About 100 campaign volunteers and supporters sat at picnic tables and blankets directly in front of the candidate while most of the huge crowd stood in the sun to Obama's left. … "The question we have to ask ourselves is: What America are they living in?" Obama said. "I don't think John McCain is a bad man. I just think he doesn't get it, and I don't think the Republican Party gets it. If they got it, then they wouldn't propose to continue the same George Bush economic policies that got us into this mess in the first place." … In Lancaster, Obama was introduced by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., a Pennsylvania Democrat, and Chris Wright, a 36-year-old Marietta Republican who is supporting Obama and was asked by the campaign Wednesday night to introduce the candidate. "It was a little surreal, definitely," Wright said. He said he believes Republicans have lost their way in regard to fiscal and personal responsibility, which led him to support the Democrat. Obama spent much of the speech proposing policy initiatives like tax cuts for 95 percent of families, financial incentives for college graduates to entice them into taking civil-service jobs, government-sponsored health care at least as good as that provided to members of Congress and investment in alternative-energy sources. "You are going to rise up and say enough is enough, the time for change has come," he said. "We are going to create the kind of economy that works for all Americans and the kind of foreign policy that restores our respect across the world."
From the York Daily Record:
… Obama spoke to a number of employees at the [Voith Siemens Hydro Power Generation] plant, which makes components for hydroelectric systems, during Thursday afternoon's visit - his first to York County. Soon after his arrival about 12:30 p.m., the Illinois senator toured the cavernous building where the manufacturing takes place. Accompanying him for the tour were U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa.; state Rep. Eugene DePasquale, D-West Manchester; County Commissioner Doug Hoke; and Clark Ruppert Jr., president of the York-Adams County Central Labor Council. Phil Avillo, Democratic candidate for the 19th congressional district, was present for the town hall meeting but did not go along on the plant tour. About 20 members of the local and national news media followed, scurrying to stay out of the way of both visitors and employees. Workers in the plant went about their jobs - operating machines, hoisting gigantic chunks of metal with cranes or putting the finishing touches on towering turbines with welding torches. Obama approached them, shaking hands and conducting conversations that were inaudible from a distance over the plant's background noise. DePasquale said the Illinois senator refrained from campaigning in the plant, instead asking the workers about their jobs. "Everybody shook his hand and was happy to see him," DePasquale said. The campaigning came after the tour was over. Obama and his retinue exited to a spot in the parking lot, with turbine components on trailers serving as backdrops. About 50 people, including company employees and several local campaign volunteers, sat in folding chairs set up in concentric circles. Obama stepped to the center of the circle, picked up a microphone and promised not to keep them long in the afternoon's sweltering heat. He told the assembled group that he's found touring such industrial sites to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of campaigning. "You get to come in and meet the people who are making things that make the lives of the American people better," Obama said. He said he chose Voith Siemens because it embodies two major facets of his platform: The hydroelectric power for which the plant manufactures components fits in with his proposed funding of programs to promote clean, renewable energy. And the recent addition of jobs there illustrates the type of economic renewal he intends to create, Obama said.
From Reuters:
LANCASTER, Pa. - The work of community organizers, who work for low salaries to help people in impoverished communities, is getting lots of attention this week as Republicans poke jabs at Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s job experience. The three years Obama spent as a community organizer “maybe … is the first problem on the resume,” said former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in his speech at the Republican convention on Wednesday. … Obama was a community organizer after college in Chicago. He worked with a church-based group trying to improve conditions in poor neighborhoods and communities hurt when steel plants closed, according to his official campaign website. He then went to Harvard Law School, became a civil rights lawyer, taught law and ran for the Ilinois State Senate. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004. On the campaign trail on Thursday, Obama told a crowd in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that the Republicans “really had fun talking about the work I did after college.” “I don’t know if they understand what it means for a young person, at the age of 22 or 23, to pass up more lucrative options and work with people who are having a tough time and seeing that when people work together, we can do amazing things, rebuilding communities and setting up job training centers and setting up afterschool programs for kids. “Maybe that’s not really interesting work for Rudy Giuliani, but for the people on the ground who are seeing a difference in their lives, that’s important stuff,” he said. … At another campaign stop in York, Pennsylvania, he said the remarks about community organizing showed Republicans were out of touch. “Why would that kind of work be ridiculous?” he asked. “Do they think that the lives of those folks who are struggling each and every day, that working with them to try and improve their lives, is somehow not relevant to the presidency?
From the Washington Post:
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic Party's vice presidential candidate, … faulted [Palin] and other speakers at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night for resorting to political attacks instead of discussing important issues and offering solutions to problems the country faces. … Biden said Palin's speech neglected to mention such pressing issues as health insurance, rising college tuition or the high cost of gasoline. By contrast, he said, Democrats hope to focus the campaign on paying for national health insurance, increasing federal grants for college tuition to families earning less than $50,000 a year and creating jobs through billions of dollars in new investments to develop alternative energy and rebuild the nation's infrastructure. Biden said Republicans cannot explain eight years of "abject failure" in foreign policy. "And they can't explain eight years of economic decline particularly hitting the middle class like a gut punch," he said. "They dug us into a very, very deep hole." Biden's appearance before a partisan crowd of about 150 people with tickets on the Prince William County campus of George Mason University followed a campaign stop earlier in the day in Virginia Beach, where he focused on national security issues. At the Virginia Beach Convention Center, Biden acknowledged GOP presidential nominee John McCain's heroic military record, but he also said Barack Obama, Biden's running mate, nonetheless demonstrates better judgment on military and foreign policy matters. "Experience only matters if you couple it with judgment," Biden said, according to the Associated Press. On the George Mason campus, Biden focused on economic issues and what he called the deepening unease felt by America's middle class. Sharing the stage with five Virginians who told of their struggles to stay afloat in an uncertain economy, Biden also said he would address the bread-and-butter issues passed over by Palin and other GOP leaders in their speeches Wednesday night. … "At the Republican convention, I heard a lot of attacks on Barack Obama, and a few on me, and I also heard something else. I heard a lot of traditional -- at least this new Republican Party, the Bush party -- I heard a lot of appeals to division in America," Biden said. "I heard a lot of scare tactics. I heard a lot of things that weren't accurate from some of the speakers about Obama's record." Saying the GOP was distorting Obama's tax plan, Biden pledged that taxes would fall for everyone except those who make more than $250,000 a year. The typical Virginian would receive a $3,700 tax break under the Democrats' plan, he said.
YORK, Pa., Sept. 4 -- For the first two days of the Republican convention, Sen. Barack Obama resisted pushing back against the attacks emanating from St. Paul, Minn. But on Thursday, the fourth and final day, his patience gave out, as he dismissed the barrage of criticism from the convention floor as "the same old vitriol and slash-and-burn politics." "You wouldn't know that this is such a critical election by watching the convention last night," the Democratic presidential nominee told a group of factory workers assembled under a blazing sun. "You're hearing a lot about John McCain, and he's got a compelling biography as a prisoner of war. You're hearing an awful lot about me, most of which is not true. What you're not hearing is a lot about you." … "We're into the final day of the convention, and not one serious word about the state of the economy, not one serious word about where they would lead," said David Axelrod, Obama's chief political strategist. "We've heard again and again that John McCain was a prisoner of war, for which we all honor him and respect him. But heck, we knew that before the convention."
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