PITTSBURGH — Sen. Barack Obama’s six-day Pennsylvania bus tour ended yesterday with news he’d chipped away at his rival’s lead and a promise that Al Gore would be welcome to battle climate change in an Obama White House.
When asked by a voter if he’d give the former vice president a special global-warming Cabinet post, Mr. Obama didn’t hesitate, noting that he talks often with Mr. Gore, a Nobel peace prize winner who remains neutral in the Democrats’ nomination battle.
“I would,” Mr. Obama said in Wallingford. “Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this problem.”
Mr. Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential race, is a favorite of Democrats for his environmental efforts but also is mocked by those who don’t agree climate change is caused by human activity. He’s refrained from backing either Mr. Obama or Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, even though Mr. Gore served as the No. 2 in her husband’s administration.
Mr. Gore, who some unsuccessfully tried to draft for another presidential bid last year, also is increasingly being looked to as a senior Democratic leader who might help broker a deal, should the prolonged nomination fight harm the party.
Both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton laud Mr. Gore on the campaign trail, and have each said before they would welcome him to play a role in their plans to green the nation.
The promise to offer Mr. Gore a Cabinet post capped Mr. Obama’s multicity bus tour, a town-hall courtship of Pennsylvania’s blue-collar workers, union activists and college students.
Mr. Obama mostly stuck to the economy while crossing the state, telling voters he wants to help the middle class get ahead with new jobs, affordable education and a new health care policy.
“I’m not sure that the same jobs are going to be back but I think we can produce good jobs with good wages and good benefits,” the Illinois senator said at West Chester University while appearing on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” his final stop of the trip.
Polls show Mrs. Clinton is still favored in the Keystone State, but the margin shrank this week as Mr. Obama flooded the airwaves with television ads and wooed voters with face time, including a host of visits to bars and an infamous game of bowling.
Mrs. Clinton, of New York, aimed to maintain her lead yesterday by attacking Sen. John McCain on the economy, going after the presumptive Republican nominee with a new ad.
The spot plays on her “3 a.m.” ad from Texas depicting the next president’s phone signaling a problem on the other end.
“There’s a phone ringing in the White House and this time the crisis is economic. Home foreclosures mounting, markets teetering,” the narrator says as images of children sleeping grace the screen.
“John McCain just said the government shouldn’t take any real action on the housing crisis, he’d let the phone keep ringing,” the ad continues. “Hillary Clinton has a plan to protect our homes, create jobs.”
Clinton aides said the ad is a “substantial” buy in Pennsylvania, but noted Mr. Obama is spending more than her.
Strategist Mark Penn said she is focusing on the Arizona senator instead of her Democratic rival because she has a plan to end the mortgage crisis while the Republican does not. He also cited polls that he said “continue to build the case that she is the most electable Democrat against John McCain,” Mr. Penn said.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded with a critique of the Democrats’ “liberal” economic agenda, adding: “John McCain is ready to lead with a pro-growth economic plan to lower taxes, cut government spending, empower America’s entrepreneurs and get our economy back on track.”
The anti-McCain spot also is a way to steer attention away from what had lately been a negative campaign between the two Democrats.
Although no Gore blessing is forthcoming, Mr. Obama scored new endorsements yesterday, including one with a national security boost: former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission.
Mr. Hamilton served Indiana, which votes May 6 and is a state in which Mrs. Clinton also leads.
Mr. Hamilton lauded Mr. Obama as a politician who can “create a new sense of national unity” and meet the nation’s challenges by bridging consensus.
“His foreign policy is pragmatic, visionary and tough,” Mr. Hamilton said in a statement, adding his candidate, “understands the urgent need for American leadership in confronting many of the challenges ahead, first and foremost defending the safety and security of the American people.”
Mr. Obama also earned the backing of two superdelegates — Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal and former Sen. John Melcher of Montana.
Michelle Obama also campaigned here yesterday, telling voters her husband was never expected to be the front-runner, and he will “always” remain the underdog.
“There are people out there who don’t quite believe that Barack Obama has what it takes,” she said, noting his deficit in Pennsylvania polls. “I am not crazy. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think that Barack was the person that we needed right now.”
She was joined by Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of 2004 Democratic nominee and Obama supporter Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts — for her first campaign appearance of the cycle.
“It’s people like us who can lend our voices to a movement to restore people’s faith in government and in the hope of America itself. On April 22, Pennsylvania can make history,” Mrs. Kerry told 1,500 voters gathered at Carnegie Mellon.
Gone was the candidate spouse from four years ago who sometimes put her foot in her mouth, and who told a reporter from this town’s newspaper to “shove it.”
Instead of going off the cuff or being playful as she was on the stump in 2004, Mrs. Kerry read from prepared remarks and kept it short before introducing Mrs. Obama. She outlined Mr. Obama’s work as a community organizer and in the Illinois state senate, denouncing “cynics” who say he is inexperienced.
Mrs. Obama thanked her friend “Teresa Heinz,” using the name that makes the endorsement meaningful here, where the Steelers’ stadium bears the Heinz name.
Mrs. Kerry’s late husband, Pennsylvania Sen. H. John Heinz III, was a popular Republican and heir to the food fortune. He was killed in a plane crash in 1991 but his name and philanthropic work live on in Pittsburgh.
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