Apr 19, 2008 10:22 pm US/Eastern
Obama: 'Get On Board The Change Train'
'Whistle-Stop' Tour Criss Crosses Pa.
DOWNINGTOWN, Pa. (AP) ―
Flags hung from the back of a shiny blue train car. Thousands of people swarmed small-town rail depots. And Barack Obama made his thematic pitch as he rolled by: "The train is leaving the station. I need your help."
The Democratic presidential candidate's Saturday whistle-stop tour meandered through the politically fertile Pennsylvania countryside from Philadelphia to Harrisburg with four full stops and a couple of "slow rolls" between.
Obama's relaxed appearance-casual without a tie or jacket, his shirt sleeves rolled up-and the lazy pace of the train belied the fierceness of the Democratic nomination fight and his sharp character critique of Hillary Rodham Clinton just three days before Pennsylvania's pivotal primary.
Polls show Clinton leading in the state, but her once-prohibitive margin has narrowed considerably.
To try to close that gap further, Obama launched two fresh television ads assailing Clinton. One criticizes her health care plan. The other quotes a newspaper deriding Clinton's "cynical responses of old politics."
Obama also went after her in appearances from Wynnewood and Paoli to Downingtown and Lancaster. He portrayed Clinton as a typical Washington politician and game-player who uses slash-and-burn tactics and will say whatever people want to hear.
Earlier, as the tour began in Philadelphia, an upbeat Obama shook hands with conductors and chatted up rail-workers at the 30th Street station's Track 2 platform. Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, Obama's most prominent supporter in the state, joined him, as did the senator's family.
"I'm really excited about this," Obama said. "This is great! Everybody, get on board now."
With that, the candidate clambered aboard the Georgia 300 train car, pulled the whistle and set off.
Plush and upholstered, the coach is named General Polk and was built by Pullman Standard for the Southern Railway in 1930. It contains a kitchen, two living areas and a small bedroom, and it has been used by other politicians before, including Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, the former president and husband of Obama's rival.
Obama's travels took him past shopping malls and apartment complexes in the suburbs as well as modest houses and wooded lots in small towns. Warehouses and factories dotting the landscape near Philadelphia gave way to sloping pastures and barns of Amish country.
One day after a stunning 35,000 turned out to hear him in Philadelphia, about 6,000 people greeted him in Wynnewood and another 3,000 showed up in Paoli. People packed parking lots, gathered on hillsides, and, at one depot, perched on a bridge.
At each stop, Obama descended his train car to speak from a podium-and before giant flags and "Change We Can Believe In" banners-in unseasonable weather in the 80s. Many in the crowds carried water bottles and wore hats under the bright sun. Some brought their children, others their dogs.
"We've got four days before we bring change to America. This is now our moment. This is now our turn," Obama said often throughout the day-prompting chants of "Yes, we can!" and eliciting shrieks of "I love you!"
At a couple of points, Obama and Casey ventured from their air-conditioned coach to wave from the small observation balcony at the back of it as the train slowly rolled by a couple of paint-peeling depots where sign-toting supporters lined both sides of the tracks.
Outside of Bryn Mawr, the candidate twice had to warn a couple of supporters in the path of an oncoming train.
"Get off the track guys, there's a train coming," he said. They eventually complied.
As his own entourage crept past the Parkesburg train station as the day was ending, Obama told onlookers chanting his name: "Get on board the change train." Then, he pulled the whistle twice as if to emphasize the point.
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