Legal Commentary

Obama's Speech From Indiana

By Jeralyn

Barack Obama will be speaking shortly from Indiana. I will put highlights here.

Barack and Michelle are dressed in black. Mellencamp is playing. Reportedly, Mellencamp has not endorsed Obama and will be playing at an event for both candidates in a few weeks.

Obama: Thank you. He smiles. Starts with individual thank yous. Has a list. First one he thanks is Mellencamp and his wife.

More...

Thanks the mayor of Evansville. Says like him, he married up.

Congratulates Hillary. She ran a terrific race. He thanks the hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians who stood with his campaign today.

There were a lot of folks who thought we'd be blown out. But we worked hard and traveled the state and we closed the gap. We rallied people of every age and race "to the cause" and whether they were inspired for the first time or for the first time in a long time, we registered a lot of new voters and it is they who will lead our party to victory in November.

The campaign is about the fierce urgency of this moment. He criticizes the bickering and small politics. That kind of politics is not why he's here.

Tells individual hardship stories. We desperately need change. We can't afford to keep on doing what we've been doing for another four years. We can't play the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expect different results.

Talks about McCain. I think he also is including Hillary in this "same Washington players" but he doesn't say so.

His audience sounds childlike in their "oohs" and "boos".

The rest is a stump speech, not about PA, I'm done.

Update: Obama's speech morphed into a rah-rah speech of hope and change. With 90% of the vote in, Hillary's ahead by 10. He got trounced in the rural counties and by blue collar Dems and Reagan/Casey Dems.

Hillary beat Obama by 10% in New Jersey and Ohio. Superdelegates will have a lot to ponder tomorrow about who can better beat McCain.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 22, 2008 (boomark / email).