Obama strikes back before crowd of 15,000

At Buchanan Park, he strongly challenges recent GOP attacks on his life and character

Lancaster New Era

Published: Sep 05, 2008
11:12 EST

Lancaster

By TOM MURSE, Staff

Democrat Barack Obama used the idyllic setting of Lancaster's Buchanan Park to strike back at a week's worth of Republican attacks Thursday, calling presidential opponent John McCain and the GOP hopelessly out of touch with average Americans.

The U.S. senator and presidential nominee from Illinois, speaking before a crowd estimated to be 15,000 strong, said McCain and his surrogates are too busy attacking his character when they should be trying to solve the country's problems.

"What America are they living in? What are they seeing?" Obama asked his supporters, dozens of whom were spread out on blankets under a small grove of oak trees in the northwest city park. "I don't think John McCain is a bad man. I just don't think he gets it.

"And I don't think the Republican Party gets it. Because if they got it, they couldn't propose to continue the same George Bush economic policies that got us in this mess in the first place," Obama said.


     Barack Obama's Lancaster address
       Obama in Buchanan Park


His speech was clearly designed not only to focus on policy — fixing the economy — but also to rebut a week's worth of sometimes harsh criticism from Republicans who took the stage at the GOP's national convention in St. Paul, Minn.

"What else do you expect them to do? This is what they do every four years. And anyway, I've been called worse on the basketball court. It's not something I spend a lot of time worrying about," Obama said before launching into a defense of his resume.

Obama saved his sharpest remarks Thursday for the Republicans who ridiculed his work as a community organizer in Chicago two decades ago — specifically singling out former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

"The Republicans really had fun talking about the work I did after college," Obama said. "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 after-school programs for kids.

"And maybe that's not really interesting work for Rudy Giuliani, but for people on the ground who are seeing a difference in their lives, that's important stuff," Obama said to cheers.

Obama did not, however, directly challenge McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who delivered an acceptance speech that was sharply critical of the Democrats — and highly praised by Republicans — Wednesday night. But he did refer to her in passing several times.

Obama said that in the last 19 months he's been to 49 of the 50 states, and the only one he missed was Alaska. Obama mentioned Palin by name only once — while challenging a statement by McCain's campaign manager that the candidates' personalities, not issues, will be the decisive factor in this year's presidential campaign.

"When you don't have new ideas to run on, of course you're not going to talk about the issues," Obama said, referring to what he called the GOP's "stale politics."

"I believe that change can happen because I have seen it and I have lived it and I have seen it in this campaign," Obama said. "What those folks in St. Paul and Minneapolis don't understand is, this election's never been about me. McCain's campaign manager has it backwards. It's not about personalities. It's not about me. It's not about John McCain, or Sarah Palin. It's about you."

The event, which was free and open to the public, drew far more than the 3,000 to 5,000 officials predicted.

City police Chief Keith Sadler and fire Chief Timothy Gregg both estimated the crowd to be about 15,000 — 10,000 to 12,000 who had made it through security and into the seating area, and another 3,000 to 5,000 who had amassed outside.

If those estimates are accurate, the crowd size for Obama matched that of John F. Kennedy's brief campaign speech in Penn Square in 1960, according to newspaper records.

Even as Obama began speaking, the line to get into the event stretched down Race Avenue, and many didn't get in.

Obama traveled to Lancaster from York, where he spoke to some 30 workers at a hydroelectric power company earlier in the day. Before arriving at Buchanan Park, he stopped at a farmers market in Columbia.

The 22-acre Buchanan Park, next to Franklin & Marshall College, last was the site of major political activity in June 1964, when former President Dwight D. Eisenhower greeted dozens of well-wishers after his helicopter touched down there. Eisenhower was attending an annual meeting of the American Ordinance Association.

Obama, dressed in a powder blue shirt and no tie, spoke for 31 minutes after stepping to the dais at 5:57 p.m., surrounded by dozens of supporters and volunteers sitting just feet away on blankets and at picnic tables. Nearby, thousands stood on the sweltering, sun-drenched lawns in 91-degree heat.

Obama's campaign stop here was his first of the fall campaign, and his third this year. He spoke here twice during his primary campaign against U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton — on March 31 before nearly 2,000 people at the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, and again on April 19 before 6,000 to 8,000 at the Lancaster train station.

Lancaster was one of only seven of Pennsylvania's 67 counties where Obama beat Clinton in the April 22 primary.

McCain, meantime, is preparing to make his second stop in the county, at Franklin & Marshall College's Alumni Sports and Fitness Center on Tuesday. He and U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman gave a 30-minute pep talk to members of the Manheim Central Barons football team at their stadium on Aug. 12.

That the two candidates are making repeated visits to the county and other parts of Pennsylvania underscores the importance of the state in November. Both Obama and McCain believe it is up for grabs; polls show Obama holding a lead of only about 5 percentage points.

No GOP presidential candidate has carried this state, however, since 1988, when President Bush's father beat Michael Dukakis.

Obama repeated his calls for an end to the Iraq war, saying he would focus attention on al-Qaida in Afghanistan. And he spoke about his plans to end tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and instead provide relief to 95 percent of working families, as well as trying to bring affordable health care to those who don't have any now, or are having trouble covering their deductibles and premiums.

"We will not wait 20 years from now to do it, or 10 years from now to do it," Obama said. "We're going to do it by the end of my first term as president of the United States of America."

Still, much of his speech dealt with the Republican criticism of him at the GOP convention.

"If you caught any of the performances in St. Paul last night," he said, referring in part to Palin and Giuliani, "they seemed to have a lot of fun with themselves. They were enjoying themselves. They spent a lot of time talking about me and weren't quite as accurate in their portrayals of me.

"They talked about John McCain a lot. They talked about me a lot. You know what they didn't talk about? They didn't talk about you," Obama said.

"... Was there a single sentence that would have described how they are going to fix this basic problem in our economy and basic problem for ordinary families all across America?" Obama asked. "You did not hear a thing."


Staff writer Tom Murse can be reached at tmurse@LNPnews.com or 481-6021.