Print
Oct 31, 2008 11:21 pm US/Central
Indiana Crowd Of 40,000 Hears Obama
HIGHLAND, Ind. (CBS) ―
-
-
Tens of thousands of Barack Obama supporters came to Highland, Ind. Friday to hear the Democrat speak.
CBS
A Republican stronghold since 1964, Indiana is now a toss-up. Friday night, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama made one more push before the election as he addressed a crowd estimated at 40,000 in Highland.
CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports the Illinois senator talked about his plans to restore the nation's economic health by investing in public-works projects and renewable energy.
Obama also said he took his young daughters trick-or-treating before the event -- setting up a joke about his Republican opponent, U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
"Every year they have trouble deciding what they want to be for Halloween," Obama said. "But John McCain didn't have that problem. Just like every year, he's going as George W. Bush."
McCain will offer some rebuttal to Hoosiers on the issue of jobs when he appears in Indianapolis Monday on the final day of campaigning before the election. It is just amazing to Indiana residents to have their state be in play this election year.
Obama urged some members of his audience to vote early before Monday's deadline closes in Northwest Indiana. Some 16,611 voters have cast ballots at early-voting sites in the region, CBS 2's Pamela Jones reports.
Some of those early voters probably attended Obama's appearance Friday. The long wait proved too much for one woman near the stage, who collapsed before being rushed to an ambulance. A half-dozen more people were treated by medical staff before the candidate's speech even began.
Their willingness to endure was understood by people like 69-year-old veteran Alvin Holmes.
"I came with this cane, and that was not easy," he said. "I would have crawled to have been here, but I wanted to be here in person."
Another audience member is expecting a child in two weeks but said she couldn't miss Obama's appearance.
"It's really exciting for me to think about our first child being born in an era when we could have the first African-American president," she said.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
