Barack Obama traveled to economically struggling West Virginia on Thursday to highlight the financial costs of the war in Iraq and to attempt to tie them to hardships at home.
“When you’re spending over $50 to fill up your car because the price of oil is four times what it was before Iraq, you’re paying a price for this war,” the Illinois senator said.
Obama has stressed the war this week and tried to shift the focus from incendiary remarks his spiritual adviser, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, made about white America. A poll suggests the furor has taken a toll, with Hillary Clinton ahead 49 percent to 42 percent.
On Philadelphia radio station WIP 610, Obama explained why he cited his white grandmother’s fear of black men in a speech Tuesday. He wasn’t saying that she holds racial animosity, but that “she is a typical white person,” Obama said, adding: “If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know, there’s a reaction that’s been bred into our experiences that don’t go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way.”
In Indiana, Clinton cited the $30 billion in loan guarantees from the Federal Reserve to stave off the bankruptcy of investment bank Bear Stearns and proposed a $30 billion emergency housing “lifeline” for those threatened by foreclosures.
“We’ve seen unprecedented Fed actions over the last several days to address the crisis on Wall Street, but nothing to address the crisis on Main Street,” she told Bloomberg News.