Sen. Barack Obama speaks at a campaign rally at the Beeghly Center at Youngstown State University February 18, 2008 in Youngstown, Ohio. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
by John McCormick, updated
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Saying that wherever he goes he hears struggles of hardship, Sen. Barack Obama emphasized a populist economic message this afternoon, as he started his campaign for Ohio’s March 4 primary.
“If you are ready for change, we can start restoring a sense of fairness to our economy,” the Illinois Democrat told an audience his campaign said totaled more than 6,000.
Obama then mentioned a titanium company he visited this morning. He called it “RTI,” before getting some help from members of the audience, who told him it was “RMI.” (Obama’s campaign says the company’s parent is RTI International Metals.)
It was during a tour of the titanium company, in nearby Niles, Ohio, where Obama donned a pair of safety glasses and walked past welding stations and melting furnaces.
The factory’s clients are primarily related to the aerospace industry or the military.
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Making his way through the plant, Obama veered toward a station where hot ingots emerge from a crucible and asked, “What’s going on here?” Later, shaking hands with workers in hard hats, he said, “You’re helping our country. You’re helping our defense industry. It means a lot.”
When a reporter asked about his safety glasses, Obama replied, “They are pretty spiffy, I’ve got to admit.” He soon took them off.
As a few workers stood around before Obama held a news conference, Terry Thomas, a 20-year veteran of the plant, said he did not know much about Obama. One thing he had heard, however, was that Obama failed to place his hand on his heart during a patriotic moment.
“If that’s true, he doesn’t have my vote,” Thomas said.
The photo Thomas was referencing was one that has circulated on the Internet for months. It shows Obama standing next to a giant American flag, while other presidential candidates have their hands over their hearts.
A Swamp post from November with Obama’s explanation of the photo, which he has called a campaign “dirty trick,” is linked here.
At the rally in Youngstown, Obama criticized the nation’s trade policies, including the past support of the North American Free Trade Agreement by Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.
“If you believe in change, we can reverse that,” he said. “I believe in capitalism. I believe in the free market…But there is something wrong with CEOs making more in 10 minutes than ordinary workers are making in an entire year.”
Obama also took a few shots at Republican front-runner Sen. John McCain of Arizona, as he has been increasingly prone to do in recent days.
“We don’t want to be the party of yesterday,” he said. “We want to be the party of tomorrow. That’s why I’m running for president of the United States of America.”
Obama is scheduled to return to Wisconsin late this evening for a rally.
In the meantime, he is doing a series of satellite interviews this afternoon with local television stations there, as well as with one station in Minneapolis that covers the rapidly growing western Wisconsin exurbs outside the Twin Cities. He is also doing interviews with several stations in Ohio and Texas, both March 4 primary states.
Obama also continues to be questioned about Clinton’s challenge to participate in more debates. It was the first question he was asked by a local reporter at a press conference this morning at the titanium company.
In response, Obama pointed to debates during the next two weeks in Texas and Ohio. “That will make 20 debates that we’ve had so far,” he said. “It’s very important for me to talk to voters directly…she may feel that’s not necessary.”