Obama tries to cultivate the Indiana farm vote
SOUTH BEND -- Sitting on a stool amid hay bales and a wagon in a barn, White House hopeful Barack Obama did his best Thursday to convince Indiana farmers he understands their concerns and will let them farm instead of filling out forms to comply with government regulations.
Hillary Clinton likewise toured the state trying to convince Hoosiers she was more in tune with their ways of thinking. She even resorted to fairy tale comparisons to illustrate what she says is her position compared to Obama and Republican John McCain on a summer gas-tax holiday.
(AP)
"You know, Sen. Obama says we shouldn't do it, and it's a gimmick. And Sen. McCain says we should do it, but we shouldn't pay for it," Clinton told a small gathering at the Brownsburg Town Hall. "I sometimes feel like the Goldilocks of this campaign: Not too much. Not too little. Just right."
Clinton and McCain support the gas-tax holiday. Clinton and Obama support a "windfall profits tax" on the oil companies.
The polls show Tuesday's Democratic primary election between Obama and Clinton neck-and-neck. Both campaigns issue a news release whenever a super-delegate endorses them, such as former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrews, who switched from Clinton to Obama Wednesday, saying he thought Obama took a more "principled" stand than Clinton against the short-term benefits of a summer gas-tax holiday.
Some of the voters coming to the candidates' events are still undecided.
Shawn Krull, 35, is a fifth-generation family farmer who asked Obama for an assurance that if he and his dad and his brother buy 10,000 hogs, Obama won't pass any new regulations on them.
"The regulations there now are adequate but not being enforced," Krull told Obama. "I'm spending more for consultants and paperwork that I know are never going to be looked at."
Obama assured him, "I'm not going to do anything that has not been worked through by the people who know the ground best." Obama also told him, "I do want cheap pork chops."
Krull, a Republican who is thinking of supporting Obama, sad he would have preferred a commitment not to further regulate big animal farms.
Dorothy Brower, 79, stood in front of the Brownsburg Town Hall Thursday clapping as she listened to every word of Clinton's speech, piped out on a loudspeaker. Brower wore her McDonald's uniform.
"I have to work at McDonald's to pay for my medication," she said.
At just about every stop, Clinton and Obama hear from voters who have nearly gone bankrupt paying medical bills. Clinton heard from a woman in Brownsburg who was out $34,000 after two surgeries.
Diann Cline told Obama Wednesday night about her 23-year-old son whose job at Wal-Mart paid him too much to qualify for government assistance but too little for him to afford insurance, so he sought no treatment after a mini-stroke, then suffered a bigger one and died will driving last year, leaving a young daughter behind.
Clinton and Obama each say their health care plan would do a better job covering the holes in coverage that affect 40 million Americans.
Obama also plugged inner-city development as a way to save farmland: "We are still building as if gas is a buck a gallon. Part of the answer to our energy crisis is thinking about how we can help our cities so we don't have people two three hours away from work. How do we encourage cities to ... develop in older areas that are being abandoned? That actually makes for a better quality of life."
One farmer asked Obama if it's true he refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Obama told the man not to believe that internet rumor: "That is bogus. These e-mails been sent around, each state, depending on what state I'm about to go into, suddenly you start seeing this smear campaign. I lead the pledge of allegiance when I'm presiding in the Senate, so you can see it on videotape. I've been saying the pledge since I was 3 years old. If you get these letters from Nigeria saying, 'We've got a lot of money for ya,' don't give 'em your bank account number."