Campaign News for Barack Obama and Joe Biden: Monday October 27, 2008 at “Say Cheese”

Today in Canton, OH, Senator Obama capped off a nearly two year campaign with a closing argument speech that lays out the choice in this election and details how he will fix our economy and bring the change we need to Washington.

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In his speech, Senator Obama told voters that after twenty-one months and three debates, Senator McCain still has not been able to tell the American people a single major thing he’d do differently from George Bush when it comes to the economy. Obama asked Americans to help him change this country, and say that in just one week, they can choose an economy that rewards work and creates new jobs and fuels prosperity from the bottom-up, they can choose to invest in health care for our families and education for our kids and renewable energy for our future, and they can choose hope over fear, unity over division and the promise of change over the power of the status quo.

Following his speech in Canton, Obama headed to Pittsburgh, PA where he held a rally for the Change We Need.

This evening, Michelle Obama will kick off a two-day western swing to promote early voting with an Early Vote for Change rally at Doolittle Park in Las Vegas, NV. She will also tape an appearance on the Tonight Show which will air later this evening.

Joe Biden will headline Early Vote for Change Rallies in Greenville, NC, Greensboro, NC, and New Port Richey, FL today.

Daily news coverage excerpts:

Politico (Ben Smith) “Big crowds for Obama’s ‘red-state tour’”: Barack Obama will conclude what aides referred to as a 10-day “red state tour” Monday, a trip that culminated in a two-day swing through three key Western states. With just over a week remaining in the contest, Obama’s goal has as much to do with encouraging supporters to vote as with communicating his message. And his target has been states that George W. Bush won in 2004 — states where he has held every campaign event since Oct. 16. The tour was timed to drive up the numbers of early voters in a rolling series of states that allow early voting: North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Indiana and then Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado over the weekend. He will touch down in Pennsylvania on Monday and spend the night in Philadelphia before returning to the red state battlegrounds, including a Wednesday rally in Orlando, Fla., with former President Bill Clinton. State statistics have suggested a national surge in early voting among Obama’s core voters, and he hopes to have built a head start and brought some unreliable voters to the polls before the majorities in traditionally Republican-leaning states vote on Nov. 4.

AP (Ben Feller) “Obama stirs up supporters in Colorado”: Roaring toward the finish, Barack Obama presided Sunday over two Colorado rallies that together drew about 150,000 people, a startling turnout in a key swing state. In Denver, the city where he claimed his historic presidential nomination, Obama stepped on stage and seemed surprised at his own following. He saw an estimated crowd of more than 100,000 people—the largest U.S. rally to date in an Obama campaign full of them. “Goodness gracious,” Obama said as peered at the human mass in Civic Center Park.

Washington Post (Robert Barnes) “Obama Avoids Partisan Rhetoric, Focuses on Unity”: On Barack Obama’s march through the red states, there is no inclination to examine the philosophical differences between the political parties. There’s no point, he says. “We’re all in this together,” the Illinois Democrat assures the crowds who flock to his events, including one Sunday in the Colorado capital that drew between 75,000 and 100,000 supporters. “We don’t have the luxury of relying on the same political games and the same political tactics that are used every election to divide us . . . by who we are or what policies we support.”