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Obama energizes 17,000+ at Kohl Center (with full audio)

Samara Kalk Derby  —  2/19/2008 9:52 am

View the audio slideshow.

As the news came in that he scored resounding victories over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia Tuesday night, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama pumped up an overflow Madison crowd at the Kohl Center.

"This is our moment. This is our time," Obama said to overwhelming applause during a 25-minute stump speech in front of more than 17,000 supporters in the arena and another 2,000 in the Kohl Center's Nicholas-Johnson Pavilion. "And where better to affirm our ideals than here in Wisconsin, where a century ago the Progressive movement was born?"

The Progressive movement was rooted in the principle that the voices of the people speak louder than special interests, he said.

Gov. Jim Doyle introduced Obama, warming up the crowd by announcing that, with the Maryland primary results, Obama had won eight primaries in a row.

"Do you hear that? Eight straight elections," Doyle said. "And next Tuesday, here in Wisconsin, we are going to make it nine straight elections."

Obama came into the brightly lit arena shaking hands all around as loud music blared. The mostly student crowd was on its feet after waiting, in most cases, more than two hours for him to show up.

"This is how you guys do it in . . . Madison?" Obama said, with an awkward pause before the name of the city. He said he was proud of Doyle's support and thanked Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett for driving to Madison. He twice mangled Mayor Dave Cieslewicz's name while thanking him for endorsing him.

Obama got one of the biggest applause lines of the night when he spoke out against the war in Iraq, saying that it was a war that should have never been authorized and never been waged. He also attacked the Republicans for using Sept. 11 to "scare up" votes.

"We need to do more than end the war, we need to end the mindset that got us into the war," he said. He said that the war would be on the November ballot even though George W. Bush and "my cousin, Dick Cheney," would not. (Genealogists have found Obama and the vice president to be distant relatives.)

Obama told the crowd -- the biggest in Wisconsin history for a primary election appearance -- that he is bringing together Democrats and independents and even some Republicans, who he calls "Obamacans."

Echoing the speech he gave at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he said his campaign is bringing together "blacks and whites, Latinos and Asians, and Native Americans, small states and big states, red states and blue states, all into the United States of America."

The 'hope-monger'

On the issues, Obama promised to provide health care for all Americans, change the country's energy policy, alleviate poverty, improve schools and provide an annual $4,000 college tuition credit in exchange for community service or service to the country.

He admitted providing health care for everyone won't be easy. "If it were easy it would have already been done," he said.

Changing energy policy won't be easy, either, he acknowledged. "Exxon Mobil made $11 billion last quarter. They don't want to give those profits up easy."

And poverty "that has been built up over centuries" won't be easy to overcome, he said.

Obama also said he would like to change attitudes and change the culture. "Parents have to parent and turn off the TV set and put away the video games," he said.

He mentioned that he has been derided as a "hope monger." But he said his own story tells him "that in the United States of America there is nothing false about hope -- at least not if you're willing to work for it."

Obama said he wasn't born into money or status. He was born to a teenage mom in Hawaii, where his father left them when he was 2.

"But my family gave me love, they gave me an education and most of all they gave me hope. Hope that in America no dream is beyond our grasp, if we reach for it and fight for it and work for it."

Eyes on Wisconsin

David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, said the events leading up to next Tuesday's Wisconsin primary have made the state more important.

"Lots of eyes are focused on Wisconsin," Axelrod said in an interview. He said Obama exceeded expectations Tuesday in the so-called Potomac primaries. "You can see the coalition for change really filling in."

Axelrod said the Obama campaign is treating primaries in Wisconsin and Hawaii, also on Tuesday, as if their candidate is the underdog. "We will fight for every vote," he said.

Obama told the crowd he will carry his message to farms and factories across the state, "and to the cities and small towns in Ohio, to the open plains deep in the heart of Texas and all the way to the Democratic convention in Denver.

"Our dreams will not be deterred and our future will not be denied and our time for change has come."

Samara Kalk Derby  —  2/19/2008 9:52 am