"I think it's going to be a clarifying election about who we are and what we stand for."

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(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Framing the November election as a defining moment for the middle class, President Obama said voters would have a choice between his policies and Republicans' "you're-on-your-own economics" as he sought to energize his most devoted supporters after a deflating week.

In a pair of campaign speeches to supporters, Obama cast the Republican Party as controlled by its most conservative wing and described his own policies as driven by American values.

"You know, if you're out of work, can't find a job, tough luck; you're on your own. If you don't have healthcare, that's your problem; you're on your own. If you're born into poverty, lift yourself up out of your own -- with your own bootstraps, even if you don't have boots; you're on your own," Obama said in remarks before a cheering crowd in Burlington, Vt. "Hey, they believe that's how America has advanced. That's the cramped, narrow conception they have of liberty."

"We just tried this. What they're peddling we have tried. It did not work," he said.

"This is not your usual run of the mill political debate," Obama said. "This is the defining issue of our time. A make or break moment for the middle class, that's what we've got to fight for."

read: http://www.wdbj7.com/news/la-pn-obama-vermont-campaign-20120330,0,4330009.story



REUTERS/Larry Downing

"Here's what I want to report, that in three years, because of what so many of you did in 2008, we've begun to see what change looks like," Obama said.

"Already, 2.5 million young people now have health insurance that they didn't have before because this plan lets them stay on their parents' health plan. Already, millions of seniors are paying less for their prescription drugs because of this law," the president said before some 4,500 people gathered at the University of Vermont.

"Already, Americans can't be denied or dropped by their insurance company when they need care the most. Already, they're getting preventive care that they didn't have before. That's happening right now."

"Either folks like me are doing more, or somebody who can't afford it is getting less," he said. "And that's not right."

read: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jj9TVYeqA-OPNY0jIUE7REoJykrQ?docId=CNG.1a373e3c26419d71d6a65008c3cd7b33.e01



(AFP Photo/Jewel Samad)

Bemoaning the fact that many Republicans these days are opposed to spending more on infrastructure or investing in new technologies, Obama told a crowd at the University of Vermont that it didn't used to be that way.

He invoked the 16th president: "The first Republican president, President Lincoln, who, by the way, couldn't win the nomination for the Republican primary right now," Obama said, "in the middle of the Civil War helped to make the Transcontinental Railroad possible, the land grant colleges, the National Academy of Sciences."

"This has not traditionally been a Democratic or a Republican idea," Obama noted about infrastructure spending. "It was a Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, who called for a progressive income tax. It was Dwight Eisenhower who built the interstate highway system."

Lincoln "understood that we're in this together; we've got to make an investment in our futures," Obama said. "It was with the help of Republicans that FDR was able to give millions of returning heroes, including my grandfather, the chance to go to college through the GI bill."

read: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/30/president-obama-abraham-lincoln_n_1392504.html



(ObamaDiary)

We’ve still got huge challenges remaining and we’re going to have to figure out how to pay for everything that we do -- which brings me to why in some ways this election I think is actually more important than 2008. In 2008, I was running against a candidate who believed in climate change, believed in immigration reform, believed in the notion of reducing deficits in a balanced way. We had some profound disagreements but the Republican candidate for President understood that some of these challenges required compromise and bipartisanship;" (Obama said, in a speech at a fundraiser earlier in the day.)

"I think it's going to be a clarifying election about who we are and what we stand for."

"I hear politicians talking about values in an election year," he said. "Let me tell you about values. Hard work, personal responsibility -- those are values. But looking out for one another, that's a value. The idea we're all in this together, I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper, that's a value."

read: http://www.dailyamerican.com/la-pn-obama-vermont-campaign-20120330,0,6294926.story



(CNN)

"And what we’ve witnessed lately is a fundamentally different vision of America and who we are. It’s an America that says -- or it’s a vision that says that America is about looking out for yourself, not for other people. It’s an America that denies something like climate change, rejects it; that takes a position on immigration that would have been unthinkable in either party just a few years ago; that when it comes to figuring out how do we pay for the investments that we need to grow, basically says those of us who are doing best don’t have to do a thing and we will balance that budget on the backs of the poor and seniors, and at the expense of basic research and basic science and investments in clean energy and increasing the cost of student loans for students."

"The recent budget that just passed the House, the budget that passed the House yesterday, if you did the math, essentially the only thing that would be left in the federal government would be defense, social security and the entitlement programs -- although those would be diminished -- interest on the national debt. That would be about it. You'd be looking at about 1 percent of the entire federal budget devoted to everything else -- education, environmental protection, science, those things that historically have made us an economic superpower, but also a country in which everybody has a fair shot, everybody does their fair share and everybody is playing by the same set of rules."

"And so, in some ways, this is going to be healthy for our democracy. I think it’s going to be a clarifying election about who we are and what we stand for. But it’s enormous -- a lot is at stake in this election. And we’re going to have to fight for it. We’re not going to be complacent and be able to deliver on what we think is the right path for our kids and our grandkids and future generations."

read: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/30/remarks-president-campaign-event



(ObamaDiary)


watch full speech: http://www.c-span.org/Events/President-Campaigns-in-Vermont-and-Maine/10737429519-2/

full remarks by President Obama at Sheraton Hotel Burlington, Vermont: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/30/remarks-president-campaign-event