FT.com: Obama supporters ready for fight

[TeamJordan23]

Obama supporters ready for fight

By Andrew Ward in Manchester, New Hampshire

Published: September 14 2008 18:08 | Last updated: September 14 2008 18:08

For Britt Hatch, a volunteer for the Obama campaign in New Hampshire, the past two weeks of the US presidential race have come as an unwelcome surprise.

“I had become complacent,” she said. “I thought the election was in the bag. Then, all of a sudden, we’ve got this big fight on our hands.”

Her anxiety was widely shared among the 8,000 people that turned up to see Barack Obama in Manchester over the weekend, amid mounting Democratic jitters about declining poll numbers and escalating Republican attacks.

The celebratory atmosphere of past Obama rallies was replaced by a defiant mood as the candidate and his supporters tried to reassure each other that the election could and would still be won.

Mr Obama warned that the Republicans were distorting his record and creating distractions to obscure their own failures but insisted the negative tactics that helped George W. Bush win the past two elections would fall short this year. “The times are too serious for those strategies to work this time,” he said. “We are here to say, ‘enough is enough’.”

His rallying cry was met with roars of approval from the crowd packed into a city centre park but, when questioned individually, many supporters sounded less confident about his ability to weather the storm. “I’m very worried because we’ve seen this movie before,” said Robert Spurrier, a school teacher. “The Republican attack machine shifts the election away from issues and turns it into a battle of personalities.”

There was broad agreement that Mr Obama must respond aggressively to attacks but avoid being dragged into the mud. “He’s got to show he can stick up for himself,” said Gail Sommer, another teacher. “But he needs to do it in a way that’s truthful and honorable and gets us back on the issues.”

Mr Obama signalled that he was heeding calls for a more aggressive approach with a punchy stump speech that combined cool anger about the country’s problems with mockery of John McCain’s claims to be the man to fix them.

The crowd hooted with derision as the Illinois senator sarcastically picked apart his opponent’s claims to be an agent of change. “He’s saying, ‘watch out George Bush, with the exception of tax policy, healthcare policy, education policy, energy policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics, we’re really going to shake things up in Washington.”

Continue Reading: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/afc25cf0-827f-11dd-a019-000077b07658.html

[Skittles]

1. the economic tsumami definitely works against McCain and his Bible Barbie

Obama needs to capitalize on it - no pun intended