Wednesday - July 18, 2007

Obama Fund Raises in Cincinnati 

Obama was in Cincinnati, padding his finances, yesterday.

Somewhere in this hotel were the people who'd coughed up $1,000 for a private reception with the presidential candidate. Who'd plunked down $2,300 for a photo with him. Who were no doubt lounging in VIP luxury, just them and their moneyed friends and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, everybody shaking hands and sipping drinks and hanging out like it was no big thing.

But up here, up on the third floor of the downtown Westin Hotel Tuesday night, this was a different kind of scene.

These were the cheap seats.

This is where College Hill's Iva Brown came to hear Obama talk about health care, where the three Memmott kids - only one of whom can currently vote - arrived early with their mother and secured a spot near the stage, where unemployed computer programmer Chris Spencer waited outside the banquet room, cranking Nine Inch Nails through his headphones.

"To say that I'm putting an awful lot of hope on him is not an understatement," said Spencer, a 37-year-old Blue Ash man who once made $60,000 a year - and now can't hang on to a job as a Circle K cashier.

Want to know who wants Obama in the White House? Here was the place to find out.

Obama, in Cincinnati for the second time this year - he showed up for a breakfast in February that drew 1,000 and raised as much as $500,000 - walked through the doors just after 7 p.m. He looked at the crowd, talked about its diversity, and said he sometimes asks himself why such a variety of people show up to hear him talk.

"The reason," he said, "is because the country is hungry for change. The country is yearning for something new."

The crowd roared. They held camera phones in the air. Obama went on to talk about the economy and energy and a war "that should never have been authorized."

But did anyone ask the hard questions?

• How will pay for your healthcare plan?

• If we pull out of Iraq, won't that be a disaster?  Won't that encourage the enemy?

• Since you advocate running from Iraq, does that mean on any issue that is tough and takes perseverance that you will quit when the going gets tough?

Instead, he gets by with the country "is hungry for change."  That's even less of a strategy than the Bush administration's occupation plan for Iraq in 2003.

Beltway Traffic JamTrackposted to The Pink Flamingo, The Amboy Times, Big Dog's Weblog, and The World According to Carl, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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