Obama's first priority: End the war
By MIKE DENNISON of the Missoulian State Bureau
BUTTE - For his first task as president, Barack Obama said Friday he'll
call in the nation's
top military officials and “tell them we have a new mission” - end the war
in Iraq.
Next on the list is reforming the nation's health-care system, so everyone
in the United States
has basic health care and costs are reduced for families and businesses.
And, third, craft a new energy policy that “requires a ****ft away from the
sort of wasteful
energy usage of the past, and to develop alternative fuels like solar,
wind and biodiesel,”
Obama said in an interview on his campaign bus near the Montana Tech
campus.
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Obama, 46, a U.S. senator from Illinois and the presumptive Democratic
nominee for president,
spent the day in Butte, taking in a Fourth of July parade and attending a
picnic with hundreds
of well-wishers and sup****ters.
But he also took time to chat with local re****ters, both on his bus and on
the grounds of the
World Museum of Mining, standing before a small grove of aspen trees that
wavered in the breeze
preceding an afternoon thunderstorm.
Obama said he has a good chance of winning in Montana because people are
struggling here and
will respond to his message of change and reform, to stop the war in Iraq,
to reduce the weight
of energy prices and ensure access to public lands.
Obama has been polling strongly in several Western states where Democrats
traditionally lose in
presidential elections, Montana included.
Yet Republicans have signaled they certainly won't be rolling over in
these states, and will go
after Obama on at least one issue dear to the hearts of many Montanans:
gun owner****p.
Earlier this week, the Montana Republican Party called on Obama to
“clarify his muddled record
on the Second Amendment,” saying Obama has a record of sup****ting
restrictions on gun owner****p.
Obama said Friday he believes in “common-sense gun laws” that allow
law-abiding citizens to
purchase and own firearms, including items such as background checks when
buying guns.
“There is not a s****tsman or hunter in Montana who is a legal possessor of
firearms that has
anything to worry about from me,” he said.
Regarding the war in Iraq, Obama repeated his call for bringing home U.S.
troops in a “careful
and deliberate fa****on,” consulting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
On health care, he said he wants a system that regulates insurers more
stiffly and helps people
who can't afford health insurance acquire it. But he's not in favor of a
national, single-payer
system like Canada or other countries that offer the same care for all,
usually financed by taxes.
“The problem is, we've got a legacy of employer-based health care,” he
said. “People are
accustomed to those sorts of arrangements and they're fearful about what
they might have to
give up in a transition to a different system.”
Obama said his plan works within the system we have now, offering
“alternatives” to families
who can't get insurance now and finding ways to lower premiums for all.
“And we've got to emphasize prevention, which is the most im****tant thing
we've got to do
long-term,” he added.
Obama also said his broad base of donors make him the candidate who can
stand up to well-heeled
special interests who have been controlling policy in the country.
The Obama campaign doesn't accept money from political action committees
or from people who are
registered federal lobbyists. However, it has accepted tens of millions of
dollars from big
individual donors connected with insurance, Wall Street investment houses,
hedge funds, banks
and pharmaceutical companies.
“When we have 1.7 million donors, there is no donor that we're dependent
on, there is no
industry that we're dependent on,” he said. “I can say ‘no' to anybody
because I've got a broad
base of sup****t.
“I've been able to show independence not only in the past, but will be
able to show
independence as president.”
http://missoulian.com/articles/2008/07/05/news/local/news03.txt
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