Obama: Choice in November will be clear

By Rudi Keller

When it is finally time to choose a president in November, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama told more than 200 people gathered into the cutting room at Thorngate Ltd. Tuesday, the choice will be clear.

President Bush will not be on the ballot, he said, but his policies will. U.S. Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, has shown little inclination to change the policies that have put the U.S. into an expensive war in Iraq, cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and seen the price of gasoline rise to levels that make driving to work an expensive necessity, he said.

"John McCain is running for George Bush's third term," Obama told the crowd of Thorngate workers, invited Democratic activists, city dignitaries and people who came to see the candidate without any real hope of hearing him speak. The event was billed as an invitation-only town hall meeting, but Obama's campaign team allowed about 60 people who had been waiting outside for a glimpse to come in.

The crowd was welcoming, applauding warmly at several points, and appreciative when Obama noted that the suit he wore, a Unite HERE suit made by union workers, "fit like a glove." And they gave him another cheer when he promised to return to Cape Girardeau later in the fall campaign to continue the fight.

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