Crowds go wild for Obama in Pa.
Polls show Obama down in Pa., but crowds go wild for him
WILKES-BARRE, PA. -- Mary Dippollito, a 69-year-old Barack Obama supporter, stood outside Wilkes University for a couple of hours in a drizzle holding a crocheted flag.
It took Dippollito 60 hours to make the flag. It is large enough to drape over a sofa. She sent four similar flags to Iraq, entrusted to the care of young soldiers. Her only request was that they bring them back safely.
(AP)
Dippollito wanted to give one to Obama to take to Washington.
Unfortunately, after waiting in line for two hours, along with about 30 other people, she was barred from the event by fire marshals concerned about overcrowding.
Such is the hazard of retail politicking (besides looking uncool while bowling, like he did over the weekend).
But the risky strategy may help narrow the gap between Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania.
The Wilkes stop was his fourth town hall meeting in as many days.
Although the local polls still show him trailing Clinton by double digits, the large, enthusiastic crowds seem to defy those figures .
Throughout the tour, the campaign has stuck to its strategy of tapping into an energized base of young voters, while delivering a bread-and-butter message designed to attract the working-class and blue-collar base.
"Our economics should be from the bottom up, which gives everybody a shot," Obama told supporters in Scranton.
All of his town hall meetings and rallies have been held in college campuses where young people, and some older ones, were eager to size him up.
Before leaving the Allentown area, Obama also toured the Tama Manufacturing plant, a J.C. Penney supplier of made-in-the-U.S. clothing, where female workers practically swooned, according to a pool report.
At Wilkes University, a cute second-grader upstaged the adults when he asked Obama: "What do you have to do to run for president?"
Obama responded: "You have to work really hard in school. You have to do everything your grandma tells you to do.
"When you leave college, you have to get a job where you serve people so that people will appreciate you," he added.
At the Scranton event, Obama was introduced by the four daughters of Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.). Casey endorsed Obama at the start of the bus tour.
Obama told the crowd that he knew it was the Casey girls who swayed their father.
"I want to publicly acknowledge and give them the credit that they deserve," he said.
After the Scranton event at the Dunmore Community Center, Obama flew to Philadelphia for a fund-raiser. He is scheduled to wrap up his six-day tour at the AFL-CIO convention.
But back to Dippollito, the senior who wasn't able to get inside the Wilkes-Barre event.
When I left her, she was still hoping to give Obama her gift.
"I think he will do something for people," she said. "I think he is a good man and has a good soul."