Sen. Barack Obama
SCRANTON, Pa. — Sen. Barack Obama told voters worried about illegal immigration yesterday that deporting 12 million people is not “realistic,” calling it an “honest conversation” during one of his final stops while trying to make inroads with Pennsylvania’s blue-collar workers.\
\
\
A man asked the presidential hopeful what he would do about border security. In his response, Mr. Obama posed the question about what to do with the people here illegally, prompting someone in the audience of his town hall forum to shout “Send them home!”\
\
\
“We are not going to send them home,” the Illinois Democrat argued. “I want us to have an honest conversation about this.”\
\
\
Mr. Obama said many illegals have “settled,” “bought property” and have children who are U.S. citizens. He said the country would have to devote “all our law enforcement resources to rounding up people without papers, even if they weren’t causing any trouble,” and once that’s done, the country would have to “empty out our jails.”\
\
\
That would force police to ignore killers and carjackers and instead be “worried about the guy in the kitchen somewhere who’s working in a restaurant,” he said.
SEE RELATED:
here.
No joke! Actual overflow news in Scranton!\
\
\
Sen. Barack Obama approached first overflow in the parking lot outside of the Scranton town hall, and immediately went to Denise Mercuri, a pharmacist from Dunmore who was wearing a Hillary Clinton button. She held an Obama button in her hand, and he asked what he needed to do to get her to wear his instead of his rival’s.\
\
\
“What do I need to do? Do you want me on my knees?” he asked.\
\
\
He then conceded, keeping with his flirty trend of the day (see earlier report), “I’ll give you a kiss.” \
\
\
Obama then gave his stump line about excited Democrats and said the party would unite around the eventual nominee to battle McCain.\
\
\
Mercuri told your pooler later she’s one of those Democrats who would be happy with either candidate.\
\
\
“I really am a Hillary supporter, though I really like them both,” she said. “I would like to see Hillary as the president just ‘cause she’s older and she can do her 8 years, and then I think he would come in and be president for the next 8 years, that’s what I’d really like to see.”\
\
…\
\
Obama was asked by a real person about his bowling, and noted his lousy score was actually even lousier since the score includes “a 10-year-old bowling one of my frames.” \
“Bowling clearly is not my strength,” he said, to shouts of, “That’s OK!”\
\
\
“All of us have strengths, bowling is not mine.”
flirtatious Obama
column
a nice explainer
— Christina Bellantoni, national political reporter, The Washington Times
