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.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/27/AR2008042702064.html
Most notably, he stated more clearly than before that he would be able to push through advances such as expanded health-care coverage and a more progressive tax system because of the popular mandate he hopes to win and ongoing pressure from the vast grass-roots organization his campaign has developed.
“When the American people work together, we cannot be stopped,” he said in Marion. “When people are unified, ordinary folks — black, white, Hispanic — when they come together and decide that change needs to come, then change will happen.”
He gave as an example his plan to broadcast on C-SPAN the meetings he would hold with industry representatives and congressional leaders to push health-care reform. “If you see a member of Congress who’s carrying water for the drug companies instead of carrying your water, you’ll be able to hold them accountable,” he said in Anderson.
Obama uses this call for a permanent grass-roots mobilization to distinguish himself from Clinton, who he says is too invested in the existing system. “You know I will be fighting for you because I will be accountable to you,” he said in Marion. “You funded my campaign, you created the political organization that got me here today, you brought me to this dance, and I dance with the one that brung me.”