Obama knocks on doors, surprises voters + now with more pictures
by Jill Zuckman
Barack Obama jetted back to Ohio today to spend three days preparing for his final debate with John McCain. But before he holed up with his advisers, the candidate began knocking on doors in Holland, Ohio, making his way through a neighborhood of modest ranch and split-level homes.
His move to the Toledo area comes as a new Ohio Newspaper poll puts the race at a dead heat, 48-46 for McCain. That's tightened considerably since the group's September survey had Obama down six points, 48-42.
Sue Sekel, a 43-year old healthcare worker dressed for a day of Sunday housecleaning, opened her front door to discover Obama standing before her.
He asked her what she did for a living and how she was managing in the economic downturn. Sekel said she was doing fine and that she voted early.
Later, she declined to tell reporters who she voted for, but she said, "I told him what I did." She also said Sunday was "the one day I come home to clean ceiling fans and look like crap, and then this happens."
Despite her fluster at finding a presidential candidate on her doorstep, Sekel still snapped a cell phone photo with Obama and said she thought his visit would help him in this working-class neighborhood.
As word spread that Obama was in the neighborhood, a few dozen people gathered across the street to watch, as three teenage girls raced across the street in bare feet and socks, armed with cameras.
"Where are your shoes?" Obama asked them, before taking photos with them and crossing the street. There he shook hands with about a dozen neighbors, asking them what they did for a living and offering words of concern.
Shelly Kretz, a 38-year old Proctor & Gamble worker who lives around the corner, said that she had been on the fence, but that Obama made her a believer with his answers to her neighbors' questions.
"It's really awesome that he takes the time to talk to the middle class and answer questions," she said, adding that her brothers, who live in the neighborhood, were in the group and also were swayed by Obama's appearance.
With 20 electoral votes, Ohio is considered a bellwether battleground state. Since 1944, Ohio has voted for the presidential winner with one exception - the state voted for Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy in 1960.
In 2004, President Bush edged Democrat John Kerry by just two percentage points, dashing Kerry's hopes for ousting a sitting president.
For the previous two debates, Obama settled in North Carolina and Florida to prepare. This time, he'll be staying in Oregon, Ohio on the banks of Lake Erie.
Taking a break from debate prep, he is expected to hold a rally in Toledo Monday afternoon.
Source
Obama arrives in Toledo
By TOM TROY
BLADE POLITICS WRITER
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama arrived in arrived in Toledo Sunday for the start of three days of intensive preparation for Wednesday’s final presidential debate, and made an unscheduled stop in a Springfield Township neighborhood to canvass for votes.
And Mr. Obama agreed in principle with the idea that every American has the right to a job, an idea put to him in a page-one open letter to the candidate from Blade Co-Publisher and Editor in Chief John Robinson Block.
Senator Obama’s motorcade stopped for about 45 minutes in the Lincoln Green neighborhood off McCord Road this afternoon where he went door to door and asked people to support him.
The white, working-class neighborhood is the type of community that Mr. Obama hopes to swing firmly to his side in the competition with Republican Sen. John McCain for Ohio’s 20 electoral votes.
Rachel Jesko, 28, a teacher, was dropping off her friend when she saw the motorcade in the neighborhood. She started crying as he walked toward her, and then followed him up the street.
“I love him. I think he’s going to bring the change we need,” Ms. Jesko said.
Tom Puhl, 63, a retired electrical designer, said he had made up his mind for Senator Obama early. He said the neighborhood is a working class community with a lot of empty, foreclosed-on homes. “He came off completely genuine and that’s what impresses me,” Mr. Puhl said.
Mr. Obama talked sports with several young men, discussed the price of gas and milk, described Congress’s $700 billion economic rescue, and shook many hands.
His longest conversation was with a man who said afterward that he likes Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president. Joe Wurzelbacher, 34, who is buying a plumbing business, debated with Senator Obama about his tax plan, suggesting it would discourage entrepreneurship.
Mr. Obama tried to convince him that his plans to give a tax cut to 95 percent of Americans and to raise taxes on those earning more than $250,000 would ultimately be good for the plumbing business by helping get the economy righted.
Another uncommited voter, Mary Colledge, 64, told Mr. Obama she wanted to pray for him.
“No matter who gets in they’re going to need God’s blessing,” Ms. Colledge said, who came away with his autograph.
The Obama campaign plane, with “Change We Can Believe In” on the fusilage and the circular logo emblazoned on the tail, landed just before 3 p.m. at Toledo Express Airport. On hand were Lucas County sheriff’s deputies and Ohio state troopers, as well as campaign and airport staff, and media.
Much of Mr. Obama’s time will be spent sequestered with his advisors at Maumee Bay State Park lodge where he will review policy issues and rehearse for the third and final presidential debate against Republican Senator John McCain. That debate will be at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, on Long Island.
People lined State Route 2 to wave to the motorcade as it went past about 5 p.m. The parking lot at Maumee Bay State Park lodge in Oregon was full and several hundred people waved as Mr. Obama arrived for his several days of study.
This is Mr. Obama’s third stop in Toledo this year.
Mr. Obama will appear at a rally Monday at SeaGate Convention Centre. No more tickets are available for the event.
In a called-out question to Mr. Obama whether he supports the right of every American to have a job, the candidate said as he entered the lodge at Maume Bay State Park, “I agree that everyone who is willing and able to work should be able to find a job that pays a living wage.”
The Blade today ran an unusual page-one open letter to Mr. Obama from the newspaper's publisher and editor-in-chief, John Robinson Block, asking him if he agrees that all Americans who want to work have the right to a job where they live.
The idea was laid out in a speech by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1944.
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And more pictures, just cause they're awesome
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Ok ontd_p'ers, if motherfucking BARACK OBAMA showed up at your doorstep RIGHT NOW, what would you do? Be honest. D: