Sen. Obama Speaks At "Ground Zero For The Politics Of Hope" In Iowa
July 5, 2007 4:50 p.m. EST
Linda Young - AHN News Writer
Fairfield, IA (AHN) - Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), told a
crowd of 1,000 in Fairfield, Iowa that the town was "ground zero for the
politics of hope." Fairfield is also known as the place that followers of
Transcendental Meditation moved to en masse more than 30 years ago.
Fairfield's sheriff said that more people turned out to see Obama than ever
have ever come to see a sitting president, CBS news reported Thursday. So to
the delight of the followers of TM founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and the
chagrin of journalists covering his speech, Obama delivered his speech facing
east with the setting sun blinding the cameras.
Obama faced east to align himself with the earth's rotation, which is part of
Yogi's teachings. The move seems to have helped, since many people at the rally
say that they were inclined to align themselves with Obama for president.
"I saw him and I thought, 'Oh my god, this is somebody who could lead us into a
new era,'" Nancy Watkins, an international student adviser at the Maharishi
University of Management, told CBS news.
Sen. Obama had every reason to be persuasive. His remarks reached an audience
larger than the 1,000 in front of him. His speech was carried live on C-SPAN,
according to the Marc Ambinder political blog on the Atlantic Online.
Not only did Obama wow the audience, he managed to do it without mentioning
President Bush. In Fairfield, and elsewhere across Iowa, Obama told listeners
that what he had heard people say was that they wanted to be for something, not
against something.
He obliged the crowd by giving it something to be for as he told them they
needed to learn how to recognize themselves in others. "Somehow we have lost
the capacity to recognize ourselves in each other," Sen. Obama said, to a crowd
that listened intently, and then broke into applause, The Politico reported
Thursday. "You know, people talk a lot about the federal deficit, but one of
the things that I always talk about is... an empathy deficit."
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