Obama: Immigrants need chance to become citizens
DesMoinesRegister.com - Des Moines,IA,USA

Millions of unauthorized immigrants should be given the opportunity to become US citizens, presidential candidate Barack Obama said during a campaign stop …

Echoing points he made on the Senate floor earlier this week, he said the United States needs stronger border control and must create tougher penalties for employers who hire undocumented workers.

Forcing millions of families who currently live in the United States to leave is impractical, he said. Obama told the crowd that unauthorized immigrants should be given a chance to become citizens, but he said his ideas would not grant "amnesty."

Undocumented residents should face fines, have no other criminal records, be required to learn English and be placed in the legal immigration process - but not ahead of others already in line - to become legal citizens.

Tim Wynes, the chancellor of the college, attended the speech. Many people in the city are looking for ways to embrace its Latino population, not looking for deportation, he said.

"The question is, how do you make this work for your family, community and state, and that’s what I think Barack Obama did a phenomenal job addressing," Wynes said.

Obama has plan to house veterans
Boston Globe - Boston,MA,USA
Senator Barack Obama greeted Frank Larsen in a cafe Friday in Colo, Iowa, where he also visited the state-run veterans home and said it should be a model …

Obama Slowly Plans Health Care Proposal
ABC News - USA
Barack Obama said Thursday he’s moving cautiously to assemble a health care proposal to ensure he can build the political support needed to move the plan …

Obama acknowledged he was moving cautiously in assembling a health care proposal to ensure he can build the political support needed to move the plan forward if he’s elected president.

Obama noted that in previous campaigns, presidential candidates have offered detailed proposals without building that political support, only to see the issue fade after the election.

"Every four years presidential candidates trot out their plans, then nothing happens," Obama said. "How do we build a movement for change so that when a president is elected there is actually a constituency and a consensus that is built so we can move the agenda through Congress."

2 Years After Big Speech, a Lower Key for Obama
New York Times - New York,NY,USA
COLO, Iowa, April 6 — Senator Barack Obama is not big on what he calls red-meat applause lines when he campaigns in small communities like this one, …

[This is a good article, but can anybody explain the first sentence of the third paragraph below? How can the audience be "a tad restless" when "long periods can go by when there is not a rustle in the crowd"? Just saying…]

He is cerebral and easy-going, often talking over any applause that might rise up from his audience, and perhaps consciously trying to present a political style that contrasts with the more charged presences of John Edwards, the former trial lawyer and senator from North Carolina, and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

He rarely mentions President Bush, as he disparages the partisan quarrels of Washington, and is, at most, elliptically critical of Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton when he notes that he had opposed the war in Iraq from the start; the two of them voted to authorize the war in 2002.

His audiences are rapt, if sometimes a tad restless; long periods can go by when there is not a rustle in the crowd. Yet Iowa is not the Fleet Center, and this appeal — “letting people see how I think,” as Mr. Obama put it in an interview — could clearly go a long way in drawing the support of Iowans who are turning out in huge numbers to see him in the state where the presidential voting process will start.

“He’s low-key; he speaks like a professor,” said Jim Sayer, 51, a farmer from Humboldt. “Maybe I expected more emotion. But the lower key impresses me: He seems to be at the level that we are.”

Mary Margaret Gran, a middle-school teacher who met him when he spoke to 25 Iowans eating breakfast at a tiny diner in Colo on Friday morning, summed up her view the moment Mr. Obama had moved on to the next table.

“Rock star?” Ms. Gran said, offering the description herself. “That’s the national moniker. But dazzle is not what he is about at all. He’s peaceful.”

Barack Obama Calls For Investigation Into Long Term Health Care …
All Headline News - USA
"Barack Obama has it right, and it is encouraging to see a presidential candidate focusing on truly helping hard working senior Americans. …

Letterman to host Obama appearance tonight
Chicago Sun-Times - Chicago,IL,USA
Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama guests on CBS’s "Late Show with David Letterman" tonight. Actress Halle Berry, promoting her movie "Perfect …

Obama confounds East Coast pundits
Seattle Post Intelligencer - Seattle,WA,USA
As political junkies buzzed over the $25 million collected by his campaign, a Barack Obama donor from our town’s Capitol Hill voiced quiet amusement at "the …

Brave bid by Barack Obama
The Nation Newspaper - Bridgetown,St. Michael,Barbados
WEST INDIAN MIGRANTS and their descendants in the United States tend to support the Democratic Party; so too do most African Americans. …

Obama’s new HQ has room to move
Chicago Sun-Times - Chicago,IL,USA
Moving from cramped, temporary space a few days ago, Barack Obama’s national presidential campaign headquarters on Thursday was settling in to its new home …