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Obama sets Iowa sights on Edwards - In a three-way fight, both are making change a campaign keynote, but in very different ways.
Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Author: Larry Eichel INQUIRER SENIOR WRITER
If you listen to Barack Obama in these closing days, you can hear how much John Edwards is on his mind.
The two have been locked in a tight, three-way battle - along with Hillary Rodham Clinton - for Democratic supremacy in the caucuses here Thursday. And both men express a lot of the same views.
They talk about fixing the way Washington works and reducing the influence of large corporations so America can move toward universal health care and energy independence.
But their approaches could not be more different, and that’s what Obama likes to dwell on.
Without mentioning Edwards by name, the Illinois senator has been telling his audiences for the last week that there are those who think you’re dangerously naïve if you don’t view politics as a pitched battle between perennially warring camps.
“They say, ‘You can’t vote for Obama because he’s too nice, he’s too polite, he’s not angry and confrontational enough,’ “ he said during a speech at a community center here yesterday. “Change is not going to come just because we holler and shout at folks. There’s no shortage of anger in Washington. We don’t need more heat. We need more light.”
There are signs that Edwards’ fiery populist rhetoric - saying that as president he wouldn’t even talk with the big drug , insurance and oil companies - has stirred the passions of some Iowa Democrats.
Proclaims Edwards at every stop: “They want me to sit at a table and negotiate with these people? No! It will never happen.”
But Obama says that picking fights is not the way to make change happen. Rather, he said, you get progress by finding common ground and working to end polarization.
Here yesterday, he was asked about how he would deal with health care .
“I’d have a big table, and everybody would be invited, . . .” Obama replied. “Yes, I’d invite the drug companies and the insurance companies and the HMOs. They’d have seats. They just wouldn’t be able to buy every chair.”
These meetings would be televised on C-Span , he said, adding that making the process public would engage the American people, thus weakening the special interests.
“That’s how you get things done, not by shouting,” he said.
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http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/15/nation/na-campaign15?pg=1
In Michigan, Obama Challenges McCain on Jobs
Los Angeles Times (LATWP News Service) (CA) - Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Author: Johanna Neuman and Noam N. Levey
EXCERPT
Pledging to enact health care reform within the first six months of his presidency, Obama praised Clinton’s health - care plan but alluded to her secrecy in developing her proposal by saying that he plans to invite all the players to a conference, open to public view. “The drug companies will have a seat at the table — they just won’t be able to buy every chair,” he said. “We’ll invite Republicans and members of Congress,” and “it’ll be on C-Span ; we’ll do it publicly.”