From the Charleston Gazette:
On the day before West Virginia's primary election, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama called for passage of the new GI bill Monday in Charleston, while taking a jab at U.S. Sen. John McCain - his likely opponent in the fall presidential election - for refusing to support it. The proposed 21st Century GI Bill would allow soldiers to receive free tuition for college. Obama said it is one of a number of upgrades to GI benefits and healthcare the federal government should provide. "It would provide every returning veteran with a real chance to afford a college education, and it would not harm retention," Obama told about 1,500 people at the Charleston Civic Center. ... "At a time when the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pricing thousands of Americans out of a college education, we should be doing everything we can to give the men and women who have risked their lives for this country the chance to pursue the American dream." ... "I'm honored that some of you will support me, and I understand that many more here in West Virginia will probably support Senator Clinton," he told the crowd at the Civic Center. "But when it's over, what will unify us as Democrats - what must unify us as Americans - is an unyielding commitment to the men and women who've served this nation and an unshakable fidelity to the ideals for which they've risked their lives."
From the Louisville Courier-Journal:
In Sen. Barack Obama's first Kentucky campaign appearance of the year, he preached his message of change last night to a huge and enthusiastic crowd. Change from President Bush's economic policies. Change from his foreign policies. Change that will come about, he said, only if Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is defeated in November. "Understand that John McCain is running for George Bush's third term," Obama told the crowd during a rally at the Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville, a week before the state's May 20 primary. So enthusiastic was the crowd that at times Obama could hardly be heard as he repeatedly criticized the Bush administration for high gas prices, rising education costs and a lower standard of living. He ripped into McCain for saying that Bush's economic policies are making great progress. "Now, I don't know who he's talking to," Obama said. "He's not talking to the people at the Ford plant." Obama's visit comes as he closes in on the 2,025 delegates he needs to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination. As of yesterday, he had 1,591 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1,426. Over the weekend, he overtook her lead among superdelegates and now leads her 281 to 271 in that category. That leaves him just 153 [now 149] delegates short of the nomination. The Obama campaign said 8,000 people crammed into the convention center last night and 2,000 more had to be turned away. The line to get in snaked around the center and about half a dozen blocks down Jefferson Street. ... Julie Johnson of Louisville said she was thrilled with Obama's message. "I'm ready for some change," she said. "My son has been to Iraq four times, and I'm ready for it to end." Gaynor Herbert, also of Louisville, said she believes Obama will move the country away from Bush's policies. "I think we're ready for change, and I think he's the one to do it."
From the Baltimore Sun:
"It's been awhile since I've been to Louisville," Sen. Barack Obama said Monday night in his opening remarks to several thousand people at a rally at the Kentucky International Convention center. Indeed, it was only days after Obama announced his presidential candidacy in Springfield, Ill., in February 2007, that the Illinois Democrat traveled to Louisville for two of his first official campaign fundraising events that also drew thousands of people. "It has been 15 months since I first announced that I was running for the presidency of the United States of America and that's a long time in politics," Obama told the crowd. "There are now babies who were born and are walking and talking." ... Obama told the audience that was "proud of the campaign that we've run." At the same time, he acknowledged "there's been times where we lost a sense of what this campaign was about" before he said the message was turned back into a positive one. ... For the rest of the week, Obama's headed for the fall battleground of Missouri; a visit to a Michigan that is still a political question mark for Democrats; South Dakota, which joins Montana in ending the parade of primaries and caucuses on June 3, and he spends the weekend in Oregon, which holds its primary on the same day as Kentucky.
From the Rapid City Journal:
Two former state agriculture leaders made a pitch to rural South Dakota on Monday for presidential hopeful Barack Obama, touting farm-policy initiatives aimed at strengthening disaster assistance, helping beginning farmers and boosting alternative fuel supplies. ... Obama's campaign previously released a list of 25 current Democratic state lawmakers – a number of them farmers - who were endorsing him. In a conference call Monday, Dallas Tonsager and Dennis Wiese, both former presidents of the South Dakota Farmers Union, said Obama was the best choice for South Dakota farmers and ranchers. Wiese said he was impressed that Obama based his rural agenda on personal meetings with farmers and ranchers, rather than Washington lobbyists. Wiese and Tonsager agreed that Obama's strong support for permanent disaster assistance was essential to farmers and ranchers who are often damaged by drought, flood, blizzards and hail. ... Obama supports the development of a permanent disaster-assistance program rather than the ad-hoc programs that critiques say can come too little too late, if at all. ... Obama would assist beginning farmers with direct tax credits to them and capital-gains-tax breaks to landowners who sell to new farmers. Obama also would use the land-grant universities as the base for a professional development program for beginning farmers. ... Both [Obama and Clinton] say more should be done to develop wind resources and transmission lines. And they both want stronger conservation provisions in farm policy, with Obama specifically urging increased funding for the Conservation Reserve Program and related programs.
Workers at Barack Obama's headquarters on Quarrier Street would elect Delores Smith the most popular volunteer. She feeds them. The other day, she fed them tons of fried chicken, 10 pounds of potato salad and enough corn bread to feed the proverbial army. Then she brought lasagna, salad and garlic bread. Last Friday, she brought baked spaghetti and baked macaroni. They're spoiled enough now to make requests. "A retired principal wanted the baked macaroni," she said. "I try to get them to give me ideas." She volunteers at headquarters just about every day. Several times a week, she arrives with banquet-sized containers of home-cooked food, a welcome break from potato chips, Fritos and fast-food burgers. "We love volunteers who bring food," worker Tom Kessler said as he piled baked spaghetti on a paper plate. "This is what keeps us going. There's never time for lunch. Suddenly, it's 8 or 9 at night and you realize you haven't eaten yet." This isn't Smith's first experience with campaign cooking. In 1960, she fed future President John F. Kennedy. She worked then for Gene Fredericks, a Democratic Party leader. He accompanied Kennedy on a campaign swing to Cabin Creek, then invited him home for dinner. Kennedy asked for old-fashioned Southern cooking. She fed him roast beef, navy beans and her famous cornbread. ... Last Thursday morning, she got a call from Max Kennedy, son of Ethel and Bobby Kennedy, who was campaigning in the area for Obama. "He thanked me for what I was doing," she said. "Then he came to headquarters. He was making calls. We were working together."
From the Boston Globe:
Apparently [Barack Obama's] not a bad pool player, as he proved today at Schultzie's, a dimly lit pool hall in South Charleston, W.V. Obama, according to a media pool report, arrived in rolled-up shirt sleeves. "We heard there were pool tables and chips and salsa," he said. He drank lemon lime soda from a straw and introduced the retired military officers with him: former Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig; John Nathman, a former Navy four-star admiral; and Jim Smith, a former Air Force brigadier general. "I can't vouch for their pool playing, but they're good guys," Obama said. "We can bowl," Nathman shot back, to laughs. Obama lamented the attention he knew would be paid to his skills. "There's pressure involved in everything I do," he said. Obama played Paul Scott, 24, who said he served two tours in Iraq. The senator led off with an even break that landed a solid in the corner pocket; he went on to sink two more in a row to cheers from the crowd. "That's a sign of a misspent youth," he said. Obama managed to sink more complicated bank shots, even if it wasn't always clear they were the shots he intended. (He was also the subject of a little charity: No one said anything when he accidentally sank the eight ball.) When Obama took a big lead, Scott said, "They told me to let you win." As he kept landing his shots, he said to a Newsweek photographer, "You didn't think I could play – you thought it was going to be another bowling outing." Scott edged him on the final ball, but Obama took heart in his performance, saying, "I didn't embarrass myself."
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