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about me
Name Katherine Kirby Neubert Birthday 09.13.87 Email katherineneubert@hotmail.com -- writer, jolter, aspiring photojournalist.
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alexis design the daily collegian the daily jolt the new york times wordswift |
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the official Democratic presidential candidate, as of two days ago when he won the primary against New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, is campaigning today in our very own state!Obama will attend a town-hall event in Bristol, Virginia – on the edge of the Southwest Virginia coalfields. He will then be hosting a rally at Nissan Pavilion, which holds 25,000 people, in Prince William County, beginning at 6 p.m. Spectators have suggested the amount of people attending will double the 25,000 limit, and for a good reason. Obama trying to win the vote of Virginia doesn’t seem like it will all be that easy, according to today’s article in the Daily Press: "He's against guns," said state Del. Christopher Saxman, R- Staunton and a co-chairman of McCain's Virginia campaign. "He's for higher taxes. That's a tough sell in Virginia."Obama has called cutting income taxes $1,000 for lower-income families but has also been open to raising the capital-gains tax rate. On guns, Obama has vowed to protect the Second Amendment's right to bear arms but has also said on his Web site that the right to guns "is subject to reasonable and common-sense regulation." Meanwhile, some people suggest otherwise: “With voters souring on the economy, the Iraq war and on President Bush, the election climate for Democrats would appear favorable. The recent string of statewide Democratic victories in Virginia suggests Republican Party disarray. And Obama, they say, is a compelling candidate who has broad appeal to independent voters and even some Republicans. He energizes blacks — a core constituency for Democrats — and has made voters out of growing numbers of young people.” It is to no surprise that Obama, the first black to head a major-party presidential ticket, feels the need and the difficulty to win over the state of Virginia. “Obama is perhaps weakest in Virginia among the rural voters of Boucher's southwest district — the one congressional district that Obama lost to Clinton in February.”He's been very critical of people in rural America," former Republican Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said. He's a co-chairman of McCain's Virginia campaign and is from the rural southwest part of the state. Kilgore cited Obama's remark that rural voters "cling to guns and religion" at times of economic hardship — for which Obama apologized.” "Kat" [
12:05 PM ] |