The Red and Black

Issue date: 9/21/07 Section: News

Media Credit: KELLY WEGEL Junior U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama (D-Ill.) speaks to a crowd at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta Thursday as part of his fundraising campaign, "Countdown to Change." An estimated 2,000 people attended the event. [Click to enlarge]

Senator and Presidential hopeful Barack Obama promised to "take America back" during a visit to Atlanta Thursday.

Nearly 2,000 people filled a ballroom at the Georgia World Congress Center to hear Obama speak at his "Countdown to Change" fundraiser with celebrity endorsers such as Usher Raymond and Rev. Joseph Lowery.

The audience wielded signs and donned T-shirts supporting Obama, but he said what impressed him more than the paraphernalia was the crowd's diversity.

"We've got young folks and old folks, blacks and whites and Hispanics and Asians and Native Americans, and you've even got some Republicans."

At one point, an audience member shouted, "I'm a Republican and I support you, Barack Obama."

"I appreciate you," Obama said.

Recent polls have placed Obama second behind Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic candidacy.

"Politics has never been a game to me," he said. "Politics has been a mission to me. You need somebody who's gonna put an end to the game plan."

"That's why we're here today, to take our country back - we can do it," Obama said.

"I've been in public service for 20 years," he said. "I've got the experience America needs right now."

Obama, whose mother received poor health care before she died from cancer at 53, said he "understands the suffering" of the 47 million Americans who lack health care.

"We keep talking about No Child Left Behind, but then we leave a child behind."

Concerning higher education, Obama said it's time to make college education more affordable for all students.

The $275 million spent on the war in Iraq each day, he said, could have been spent "right here in Atlanta on schools."

Obama said he would raise the minimum wage, give people a "boost" up the economic ladder, end tax breaks for companies who outsource jobs overseas and address the shortcomings of the criminal justice system, citing the Jena Six in Louisiana.

"The mainstream media was surprised by what happened in Jena," he said. "Simple justice is what people are asking for."

But the change that America wants is not going to come easily, Obama said.

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