Change Begins with You!

barackobama.com

Barack Obama was the first of four presidential candidates to campaign in Minnesota in the final days leading up to Minnesota's precinct caucuses Tuesday.

From Minnesota Public Radio

Minneapolis — Barack Obama did what the Minnesota Timberwolves could only do twice this season. He filled the Target Center. An estimated 20,000 people attended the afternoon event. Most of the seats were filled and hundreds stood on the floor watching Obama deliver a nearly hour long speech.

"Thank you Minnesota!" he said as he looked at the audience. "Wow! This is a pretty good crowd!"

Barack Obama
Obama invoked Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy and even the late Sen. Paul Wellstone. He told the audience that he inherited Wellstone's desk when he came to the Senate in 2005.

His speech focused on his key campaign theme -- change. Obama used the word at least two dozen times during his speech, much to the delight of the crowd. He said he was the candidate promoting change before it became popular.

"This change thing must be really catching on because I notice everyone is talking about change," he said. "Mitt Romney has change on his signs. George Bush, for all I know, he's for change. But see, we're not interested in change as a slogan. We want change we can believe in and that has to be earned."

Obama said, if elected, he would work to reduce global warming, lower the cost of health care and make college more affordable. He said he would roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy and give those tax breaks to the middle class. He disavowed lobbyists, saying their influence in Washington would be weakened if he was elected President.

Obama also criticized the war in Iraq, saying he opposed the war from the beginning -- a direct criticism of Hillary Clinton who voted to authorize military action against Saddam Hussein. Obama said the war will end up costing too many American lives and trillions of dollars - money he said could have been better spent in this country on schools, bridges, worker retraining and broadband lines in rural communities.

Crowd outside Target Center
"We should have never gone into that war," he said. "And I will end that war when I'm president of the United States and I will bring our troops home in 2009."

Obama is still in his first term in the U.S. Senate. He said the pundits are questioning whether he is seasoned enough to be president and suggesting he needs a few more years in Washington.

"But you know, the American people, I think they're rejecting that argument because they realize the biggest gamble would be to have the same old folks doing the same old things over and over again and somehow expecting a different result," he said.

Obama urged the entire crowd, a mix of young and old, black and white, to caucus for him on Tuesday night.