Obama campaign reacts to Palin's Cape Girardeau speech

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin broke no new ground and repeated assertions about Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Sen. Barack Obama that aren't based on the facts, a spokesman for the Illinois senator said Thursday.

Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, spoke at the Show Me Center in support of the GOP's get-out-the-vote effort in advance of Tuesday's election. She is the running mate of U.S. Sen. John McCain.

Justin Hamilton, Missouri spokesman for the Obama-Biden campaign, said he had received extensive reports about the Palin-led rally Thursday morning at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau.

"What we heard today, what Missouri heard today from Sarah Palin is more of the same," Hamilton said. "It was a promise to give us four more years of the last eight, and that is something that Missouri just can't afford."

Palin and other speakers on stage attacked Obama on abortion, gun rights, tax and spending policy and the Iraq war. On taxes, Palin said Obama "has an ideological commitment to higher taxes."

Hamilton said those words exaggerate Obama's tax plans, which he noted would result in higher taxes only for people earning more than $250,000 a year. "No. 1, there is only one candidate in this race who is promising to cut taxes for 95 percent of working families in Missouri and America, and that is Sen. Obama."

The Missouri Democratic Party weighed in as well, suggesting that Palin's speech was as much about a run for the nation's top job in 2012 as it was about winning the 2008 election.

"This morning Missourians got a good glimpse of Sarah Palin's stump speech for her 2012 presidential run," Jack Cardetti, Democratic Party spokesman, said in a prepared news release. "Unfortunately, Missouri families need help now. We have tried it George Bush and John McCain's way for the past eight years, and it just hasn't worked for Missouri families."

The Obama campaign has one of the largest organizational efforts by a Democratic presidential nominee in memory. The campaign has 44 offices, including 29 outside the state's major metropolitan areas, Hamilton said. While each office has paid staff, the major part of the work is being done by volunteers putting in 25 to 30 hours each week, he said.

'That is preposterous'

On war policy, Palin said Obama wants American troops to come home in defeat. "We need someone who can talk about the wars America is fighting and isn't afraid of the word 'victory.'"

She also said Obama is indifferent to the needs of the troops.

"That is preposterous," Hamilton said. "While we are against President Bush's policies in Iraq and the misguided judgments that got us there in the first place, we salute the troops, we salute their effort and we salute the effort of families and loved ones back home who bear the burden."

Hamilton said Obama wants to end the war in consultation with Iraq's government and intends to push Iraq to start spending its huge oil revenue surplus rather than relying on American taxpayers for rebuilding.

"John McCain seems to think we should be in Iraq indefinitely," Hamilton said. "He can't decide if everything is OK and we are winning or if victory is in sight. It is time to redeploy the troops home. I can't count how many times we have turned the corner in Iraq."

rkeller@semissourian.com

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