Closing Argument: Obama's Last Stand in IowaDecember 26, 2007 9:49 PM
ABC News' Sunlen Miller reports: Claiming he got one of his Christmas wishes, eight hours of sleep, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., hit the campaign trail with a week to go until the Iowa caucus.
Obama said his other Christmas wish is to win the caucus.
At a campaign stop in Webster, Iowa, Obama said he thinks he’ll get just that, “Despite the skepticism, despite folks saying we couldn't do it -- here we are 10 months later and we are on the verge of winning Iowa.”
Obama delivered a slightly different stump speech, all under the umbrella message that has defined his campaign: change. The slightly different rhetoric will likely make up his final argument trying to woo Iowa voters over one last time.At a campaign stop in Mason City, Iowa, Obama responded, without mentioning names, to former President Bill Clinton’s assertion that a vote for Obama would be a roll of the dice.
“The argument that's being made in these last 7 days... don't, you know, try something different because that's going to be too risky, you might not know what you're going to get. So even though you know what's been done in the past doesn't work, stick with it.”
Bill Clinton’s name also came up at a later event in Webster in which Obama compared questions about the former president’s run to his own.
“Back in 1991, there was a candidate being attacked in a similar way and he said that people were questioning his experience, he said you know what, there's a wrong kind of experience and a right kind of experience. My experience is the experience...is rooted in the real lives of real people.”Obama spoke of “seeds of doubt” that he claims rival campaigns have planted in this campaign. “The problem is at the end of the campaign what ends up happening is people running negative ads or negative mail. They plant seeds of doubt. They say 'oh Obama he's young, is he electable enough?' …You know they say he's got that funny name, you know and they are looking through my kindergarten papers, I keep on telling folks that I’m Christian but they keep on planting seeds of doubt on this and that.”Bringing up his top rivals by name, Obama also referenced their health care plans, for the first time using the word “punish” to describe their mandates for health care.
“Some of you have heard them say, Obama doesn't cover everybody. What they're really saying is they will punish you in some way if you don't buy healthcare and what I've said is, the problem isn't that people don't want healthcare, the problem is they can't afford it. And so if we can control costs, people will get it. So there's a philosophical difference there.”Obama, making his way through the state on a “Stand for Change” bus tour is also courting caucus goers to be their second choice. He opened up his events asking people that even if they have made their minds up for another candidate, “we still want to be your second choice.”
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/12/closing-argumen.html
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