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Wed Jul 18, 2012 at 11:15 AM CDT
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President Barack Obama made a series of fundraising stops in Texas yesterday, including a lunch in San Antonio with Mayor Joaquin Castro and Eva Longoria, and a rally at Austin Music Hall with Jerry Jeff Walker. It was clear from the size and enthusiasm of the crowds that Texas Democrats are excited to work hard to re-elect the President. It was plainly evident from President Obama's speech in Austin that he's fired up and ready to go.
The President's speech, which lasted a half-hour and was punctuated frequently by deafening cheers from the 1000-person crowd -- framed the election as a choice between two fundamentally different views of our economy. President Obama wants to build an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, invest in education and infrastructure, and build the middle class, because when the American middle class does well, everyone does well. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney seems focused on giving tax cuts to wealthiest Americans, rewarding companies that offshore American jobs to other countries, shutting down Planned Parenthood, and gutting education opportunities.
The speech was solid, its delivery was energetic, and best of all, while Obama was clearly giving the supportive crowd some red meat, the core message still hewed to basic principles of fairness that should resonate with a wide swath of Americans.
More photos and observations below the jump |
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Despite waiting in line outside the Austin Music Hall in an extraordinarily humid July day, the capacity crowd, estimated at 1000, was excited to see the President. Chants of "four more years!" filled the venue while supporters waited for the President to arrive.
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President Obama quickly launched into a solid stump speech hitting on major campaign themes: economic fairness, opportunity for all Americans, and not going back to the failed Republican policies of the last administration.
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Energetic sign language interpreters repeated the speech for the hearing impaired, who were close to the stage. That has to be one of the more fun and unique roles on the campaign trail: sign language interpreter for the President!
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The President enumerated his main successes in the past four years, including ending the war in Iraq, drawing down troops in Afghanistan, passing landmark health insurance reform, ending deportation of DREAM Act eligible students, and ending "Don't Ask Don't Tell," to huge cheers. He also struck a more thoughtful tone in detailing the tremendous economic discrepancies between his policies and those of Romney's.
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After the speech, the President worked the crowd in the front, fist-bumping, baby-hugging, and photo-posing his way out of the room, on to his final stop in Texas before returning late last night to Washington DC.
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