Report from Obama Event in Marshalltown: Part 1

I attended the Barack Obama event held in Marshalltown today. This was a great event with probably close to 500 people there. There were so many people that the overflow room was full. As you probably can tell, I decided not to liveblog the event, but Chase from Iowa progress was able to. This was my second time attending an Obama event. The first was in Ames in front of 5,000 people. Here are my reports from the Ames event (part 1 and part 2).

Obama began by saying this was the 2oth county in Iowa that he has been to already and he will surely make it to all 99 counties this year. He thanks everyone who helped organize the event and all of the local elected officials. Then he goes into his bio. He talks about helping people organize in Chicago right after college and the one thing he learned is that ordinary people, when given the opportunity to work together can accomplish great things. Talks about going to Harvard, getting a job, etc. Then says when he first decided to run for state Senate people would ask him two questions. First, where did he get that funny name? Then they would ask why a nice guy like him would want to get into something dirty and nasty like politics? He said politics today is more of a business than a mission. He adds that politics doesn't have to be that way and shouldn't be that way.

Obama then says that our nation faces some big challenges. He says our health care system is broken, our education system is inadequate, we lack an energy policy, we have an economy that has never been more productive, yet we have stagnant wages, and we are in a war that never should been authorized and waged. He made sure to mention that he was against the war from the beginning, which drew applause from the crowd.

In one of his best lines of the afternoon, Obama said that some people say he shouldn't be running for President and he needs to spend more time in Washington. He replied that he has spent enough time in Washington to see that it needs to be changed.

He then outlines some priorities he would have as President. First, he sees no reason not to have Universal Health Care by the end of the next President's first term. He would put more money into early childhood education. He discusses the shortcomings of NCLB saying that we passed a bill called No Child Left Behind, but have left the funding behind. He also goes into the challenges of global climate change and that with the use of incentives. He discusses that acid rain is no longer a challenge because we used incentives that made it worthwhile for entrepreneurs and businesses to come up with solutions. He says the same can be done for carbon emissions and renewable fuels.