A procession of Obama supporters snaked around the block outside Beeghly Center on the north end of YSU's campus. You'd expect a university campus rally to be flush with students, but retirees, all kinds of folks-young and old-stood in line to hear presidential hopeful Barack Obama speak.
Tasha Flournoy: What are you excited to hear from Barack today? TARYN BELL: Well, I'm just excited to see that I get to see a president in person.
That was ten-year old Taryn Bell, who came with her grandmother Joann Wilson to the rally. Wilson is a confident and solid Obama supporter - she says he has the intelligence and the charisma to become America's next president. But, as a retired office worker in blue-collar Youngstown, she wanted to hear Obama's stance on the economy.
Joann Wilson: It's in the toilet. We need somebody with some positive ideas on how to get us back to being a world power instead of selling our jobs and everything else overseas.
And that was just the issue Obama focused on when he took the stage YSU. He outlined what he's dubbed a "Patriot Employer" plan that calls for an end to tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, and rewards companies that create jobs in the U.S.
Barack Obama: We believe in trade, but we want labor agreements and environmental agreements. And safety standards so that our U.S. workers are not being undermined. We have the best workers on the Earth. But we gotta have a level playing field to make sure we're fair. That we're enforcing those agreements.
He also plans to roll back President Bush's tax cuts for wealthy Americans, and shift some of that that money to middle class families through payroll deductions.
During almost one-hour address, Obama listed other priorities, both domestic and foreign. He called for extensive measures on health care, saying he would ensure that every American had coverage equal to his own paid-for government plan, and would emphasize prevention…
Barack Obama: So that we have a health care system rather than a disease-care system. We're going to catch illnesses before they happen….
He also repeated what's now a long-familiar Obama theme - his opposition to the war in Iraq from the beginning, and the consequences - distraction from Al al Qaida and Afghanistan, world-wide anti American sentiment, and lives lost.
Barack Obama: And that's why I will bring this war to an end in 2009 and bring our troops home.
While Obama's points on outsourcing, health care and foreign policy got the crowd cheering, they pounded the bleachers and went wild when he responded to some of Sen. Hillary Clinton's criticisms of him, namely that he's not battle tested to handle the Republicans.
Barack Obama: I've got to explain to them I'm skinny but I'm tough. I'm from Chicago. We know how to play politics from Chicago.
And he rebuffed the recent attacks from Clinton that he's all talk and no action.
But most of all Obama was streadfast in his message of hope and change, which grandmother Joanne Wilson said left her inspired and optimistic.
Joann Wilson: I don't think it was any one thing. Just the whole message. It's just such a message of hope. The hope part I think is it.
Today, Obama will campaign in Texas, which, like Ohio, will hold its primary on March 4th. Hillary Clinton will be back in Youngstown tonight for a rally at Chaney High School.
Tasha Flournoy, 90.3.