|
Obama to Speak on Fatherhood at Chicago Black Church
2008-06-15
June 14 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama will give a talk on fatherhood tomorrow at a black church in Chicago, his first such appearance since quitting his congregation of more than two decades following criticism of his former pastor. The Illinois senator's Father's Day speech will address the need for parents to help children realize their dreams, his campaign said. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee will speak at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, which is one of the city's largest black churches and not far from Obama's home in the South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park. Obama and his wife, Michelle, left their longtime parish, Trinity United Church of Christ, last month following a national uproar over inflammatory remarks made by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and a guest preacher. Obama was forced to denounce Wright over his attacks on the U.S. government. After the Reverend Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest, mocked Obama's Democratic rival Senator Hillary Clinton during a racially tinged sermon May 25 at Trinity, a ``deeply disappointed'' Obama quit the church. Seeking to appeal to a broader base of voters, Obama has been emphasizing his family life and Christian faith on the campaign trail. Yesterday, while campaigning with her husband in Ohio, Michelle Obama said that she and Obama, both lawyers with Ivy League educations, see themselves more as ``power parents'' than as a ``power couple,'' as they are sometimes described. Midwest Floods Obama today visited Quincy, Illinois, where flooding from the Mississippi River is forecast. The candidate, wearing jeans, used a shovel to fill sandbags and urged people to volunteer to help with flood preparation efforts. Storms in the Midwest have knocked out electricity, submerged roads and destroyed homes, and they have been linked to 15 deaths in Iowa since May 25. Obama said he will do all he can to make sure Iowa and the surrounding area get government assistance immediately, and that everyone should be ``saying a prayer for the people in Iowa who are obviously facing devastation.'' Earlier today outside of Philadelphia, Obama continued to stress his plan for providing economic relief to middle-class working families, focusing on high oil prices. ``I want to wake up and know that no family is struggling just to fill up a tank of gas,'' he said at a town hall event in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Obama continued to go after his Republican opponent, John McCain, referring to the idea of a gas tax holiday, backed by the Arizona senator, as a ``gimmick.'' The Illinois senator opposes the plan on the grounds that gas tax holidays haven't helped lower prices for consumers in the past. Lower-Income Drivers McCain, on an afternoon conference call with voters and reporters, defended what he called his ``much derided and criticized'' gas tax proposal, saying that it would help lower- income Americans, who tend to drive the farthest to work, in older cars that use more gasoline per mile. The Arizona senator said that achieving energy independence must become ``a national mission,'' akin to the U.S. space program of the 1960s that put a man on the moon, to develop wind, solar, and tidal power and create electric cars that run on batteries. McCain also reached out to supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton, who conceded the Democratic presidential nomination to Obama June 7, by praising the former first lady. ``I respect and admire the campaign that she ran,'' McCain said. ``Every place I go, I'm told that Senator Clinton inspired millions of young women in this country,'' and in fact, ``inspired a whole generation of young Americans.'' To contact the reporter on this story: Kim Chipman in Aberdeen, South Dakota, at kchipman@bloomberg.net Nadine Elsibai in Washington at nelsibai@bloomberg.net
| 
