The Barack Obama campaign is focusing in on “battle ground” states and making sure what happened to John Kerry’s presidential bid in Ohio in 2004. “Ohio has the third most electoral votes of all the battleground states,” said Steve Hildebrand a deputy campaign manager for Obama during a call with the media. Hildebrand and Ohio campaign director Aaron Pickerell discussed the base that had been laid by the successful bids of Democrats Sen. Sherrod Brown and Governor Ted Strickland in 2006.

Pickrell said that the campaign is spending more time in traditionally Republican districts, following the strategy of Brown and Strickland to target the whole state instead of urban and suburban areas. Much like the Obama campaign organized in Iowa the Ohio strategy involves 1200 neighborhoods organized by resident neighborhood team leaders. Pickrell said that this campaign can build on the foundation of increased Democratic voting rates built by Strickland and Brown.

Strickland said that the manpower Obama has placed in the field will make a major difference. He also said that he is impressed at the efforts to court Clinton supporters and that he, along with Hillry and Bill Clinton, will do “anything and everything” he;s asked to do to support the Obama campaign.

Strickland said that Obama won’t win every region of the state, but he won’t repeat “the Kerry mistake.” Strickland said that he thinks that these effors in Ohio will increase the percentage of Democratic votes in some counties by 10 to 12 percent. Strickland will be a speaker at the upcoming Democratic National Convention; he said his speech will focus on the economy.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) delivered a speech on a new approach to fighting terrorism. Kerry cited a memo authored by Donald Rumsfeld in 2003 that asked if the United States was dissuading more people from becoming terrorists than radical clerics were deploying. Kerry said the United States still is not deterring terrorists, noting al-Qaeda’s strength along the Afghan-Pakistani border, the Taliban’s resurgence, Hamas’s grip in the Gaza Strip, and Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon.

Kerry said the United States should engage in a strategic reorientation already enacted by Saudi Arabia. He stated that the Saudi government has been able to gain the upper-hand in the fight
against terrorism by using counter-indoctrination. According to Kerry, the Saudi government has imams explain Islam’s opposition to extremist ideologies to detainees and sponsors messages at soccer matches featuring former terrorists who urge against radical jihad. Kerry said the United States was most successful in the fight against extremism when it provided post-earthquake aid to Pakistan and assisted tsunami relief in Indonesia. Kerry called the Administration’s policy of torture and indefinite intention “self-defeating.”

To win the global war on terror, Kerry advocated helping Pakistan fight al-Qaeda along the Afghan border and increasing American aid to the Pakistani people, a move he suggested would cause the population to grow tired of extremists’ presence. Kerry said “We’re in real danger of losing in Afghanistan” and said fixing problems in Pakistan is the only way to prevent a loss from occurring.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) says terrorist attacks are currently at historic highs, stating that that al-Qaeda is more capable of attacking the United States now than it was in 2001. He says the next president should reform the war on terror and include more intelligence, making it possible to prevent terrorists from being recruited. (1:12)

 

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Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) says it is clear that invading Iraq was a grave mistake, diverting resources in the fight against al-Qaeda and, by failing to differentiate between a secular dictator and religious extremists, causing the United States to play into Osama bin Laden’s hands. (0:29)

 

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Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) says to let George W. Bush be remembered for an overly militarized focusing on fighting terrorism and to let the next president defeat terrorism by emphasizing America’s moral authority. (0:30)

 

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Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) says he finds it shocking and shameful that the United States remains the most wasteful nation in the world with respect to energy and that the United States dependence on foreign energy sources stems from its own extravagance. (0:58)

 

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Visible frustration concerning increased oil prices was displayed by Senators at a meeting of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. To prepare for the winter, the committee met to discuss the effect of increasing oil prices on the cost of home heating oil.

Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) presented statistics showing the rising cost of home heating oil in Maine. According to Snowe, the price of home heating oil has increased 135 percent in her state while income has only increased 17 percent. Snowe projects that Mainers will have to spend $5,000 to heat their homes with a per capita income of $33,000. Snowe said that many “could freeze to death,” adding that many throughout the United States will be unable to afford to heat their homes during the winter months.

Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) said one can attribute the rising price of home heating oil to the rising cost of crude oil. In reference to the White House, Kerry stated that a stronger administration would be doing more to assist Americans. He also said he finds it shocking that Americans continue to waste energy by using electricity when it is not needed after 30 years of gas shocks and efforts to counteract global warming.

Deputy Assistant Energy Secretary for Petroleum Reserves David Johnson said in his testimony that the price of home heating oil can be lowered by increasing domestic production of oil by drilling on continental shelves and in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR.) Kerry told Johnson that oil from the ANWR would only lower American gas prices two cents per gallon at full production and that the United States only has three percent of global oil reserves. Kerry continued, saying the United States’ oil supply is not large enough to lower international prices and that the rhetoric employed by Johnson and others has “worn short.”

Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) said in a conference call with the Barack Obama campaign, that John McCain (R-Ariz.) has spent the week exhausting himself with a double talk dance and presenting new and opposite views on many of his policies.

Kerry outlined several positions that McCain has changed on over the past few weeks such as torture, offshore drilling, drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). McCain said that he would “be more than happy to examine that again” even though he previously said it wasn’t worth the time. Kerry said that the U.S. has only three percent of the world’s oil and John McCain used to know his stuff and argue is points well, but now “running for president has evidently provided an opportunity for double talk” or more of the Washington game at the expense of the interest of the American people.

Kerry said that before McCain can start debating with Obama, he needs to finish debating with himself. The fundamental distinction between Barack Obama and John McCain is that Obama understand that you can’t drill your way out of this crisis but that you need alternatives, Kerry said. McCain is offering the same Bush mentality that oil can solve every problem. The United States cannot have leadership that pretends there is a solution for getting more oil and gas through U.S. sources that will help the current crisis, the leadership need to be focusing on alternative energy solutions, he said.

St. Paul Minnesota Mayor, Chris Coleman agreed with Kerry’s remarks and said that McCain’s gas tax holiday is “the biggest gimmick McCain has put out there.” Whereas Obama has proposed significant and real steps towards a more secure future, McCain has only proposed more Washington gimmicks and flip flopping policies.

In a conference call from the Obama for America press office, Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Mayor Chris Coleman of St. Paul, Minnesota discuss the effect of John McCain’s failed energy ideas for Minnesota and America. Kerry spoke about John McCain’s “double talk dance” and how he has changed his opinion on many issues over the past few weeks. Kerry says that Obama is offering the right issues for the American people in finding new alternatives for gas, whereas McCain is just following the Bush doctrine of digging for oil. (19:58)

 

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Sen. John Kerry(D-Mass.) speaks about the large number of uninsured Americans and the government run and private health care system, which are both quite high and needs to be changed, the health care system is “out of whack an unsustainable.. Kerry says that Congress will need to change the way we work with health care. (1:28)

 

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