Hours after defeating reporters in a vicious game of Taboo, Barack Obama swung into Oregon for two days of stumping—and started his visit at a Beaverton tech-sector office park, where he took questions from software-designer employees.
The immediate lessons? Unlike other people he could name, Barack Obama believes in science. And he’s already started campaigning against John McCain.
Though Hillary Clinton was just up Highway 26 hosting a private meeting of her own at OHSU, Obama didn’t seem much interested in discussing her. Instead he dedicated his prepared remarks to contrasting himself against McCain, who “is running for President to double down on George Bush’s failed policies. I am running to change them, and that will be the fundamental difference in this election when I am the Democratic nominee for President.”
Obama spoke in the conference room of Vernier Software & Technology, which designs hand-held computers and lab equipment for use in high schools, and in his answers to questions from chemists and accountants, he portrayed himself as an Enlightenment candidate, dedicated to education and innovative business.
“They really don’t believe in science, do they?” he chuckled after a question from biologist Robin Johnson about Bush administration policies. Obama, on the other hand, believes in sciency things, promising to budget “$150 billion in 10 years into green technologies.” These projects include “developing a replacement for the internal combustion engine, which could be useful.” Barack Obama: Not only will he not reprieve your gas tax, he wants to make your whole damn car obsolete!
But if that’s just the sort of rhetoric that gets people in West Virginia and Kentucky feeling all God-clingy, Obama isn’t worried: Perhaps the most intriguing hint of the morning’s chat is that he expects to lose in both states anyway. Asked whether he would want Hillary as a running mate (”Did one of the reporters put you up to this?” he cracked), he noted that he did not consider the race over, and added as an aside that he expected Clinton to win West Virginia and Kentucky, “and win by significant margins.”
The upshot of this? If Obama is planning, as he has suggested, to declare national Democratic primary victory on May 20, he probably won’t do it in Kentucky, a state he expects to lose. He’ll do it here. Get ready for a big, science-friendly victory party, Portland.
Other notes from the Beaverton event:
• Those Secret Service agents take their job mighty serious. Clogged traffic on the 405 kept me from arriving at Vernier offices until a few minutes before the event, by which time the media entrance was closed, the bomb-sniffing dog had gone home, and the agent posted to the entrance (who bore a strong resemblance to George Bluth’s surrogate in Arrested Development) wasn’t letting anybody in. No exceptions. Period. It took three separate Obama media reps to convince him that a single reporter, his pockets emptied, might be allowed into a break room across the building from the conference. This break room provided excellent views of the KGW tech crew playing Crazy Eights, and of more Secret Service agents patrolling the potted ferns and empty cubicles in Vernier’s elevated lofts.
• Obama’s best line of the morning was a wisecrack at the expense of former FEMA chief Michael D. Brown: “No more heads of the Arabian Horses Association in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
• Another sign that Obama no longer sees Clinton as his real opponent: He’s willing to say nice things about her rival health-care plan. “Both Sen. Clinton’s plan and and my plan are serious attempts to provide coverage to everybody,” he said. “John McCain’s is not.”
• Looks like Salon heard the same message I did. They probably could actually see the candidate, though.
• Other highlights of Obama’s prepared remarks:
We have a difference on taxes. John McCain wants to continue George Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans; I want to give a tax cut to working people. I admired Senator McCain when he said he could not “in good conscience” support the Bush tax cuts. But now, as the Republican nominee, he’s fully embraced them. He wants to give a permanent tax cut to the wealthiest Americans who don’t need them and didn’t ask for them while working people are struggling. And for all his talk about fiscal responsibility, he’s proposed $400 billion in tax cuts without any word about how he’ll pay for him. That’s exactly the kind of attitude that has shifted the burden on to the middle class, and mortgaged our children’s future on a mountain of debt.
I think it’s time to restore fairness and responsibility to our tax code. We need to reward work—not just wealth. We need to stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, and put a tax cut in the pockets of middle class Americans. That’s why I’ve proposed a “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 for workers, and $1,000 for working families. This will cut taxes for 150 million Americans. It will help you deal with rising costs, and give our economy a boost by easing the burden on Main Street.
We have a difference on gas prices. John McCain has embraced a gas tax gimmick that—when it’s said and done—will save you less than thirty dollars this summer. This is a classic Washington fix that’s more about getting John McCain through an election than solving your problems. It will put more money in the pockets of the oil companies. It’s bad for our environment. And it won’t bring down gas prices over the long term—most economists think it will send those prices up.
I believe we owe the American people the truth. That’s why my plan to lower gas prices raises fuel efficiency standards on cars; invests in alternative energy to end our addiction to oil; and creates millions of new Green Jobs while saving our planet in the bargain. That’s the kind of change we need in Washington.
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Tags: Secret Meetings, Spotted
