Obama: support "black or brown"

by Christi Parsons

Usually, Barack Obama relies on a moral appeal when arguing that Americans should guarantee a quality education for all children, regardless of whether they live.

This morning his argument was about self-preservation, though, when he told a mixture of senior citizens and high school students that their future depends in large part on young people of color.

"Half the work force is going to be black or brown" in a few decades, the Democratic presidential candidate said at a townhall meeting at Great Valley High School. "If those kids are not educated . . . They're the ones who are supposed to be paying our Social Security."

It's not a radical change in rhetoric for Obama, who often highlights common interests when arguing for policies of compromise and conciliation.

Still, on the topic of education, he frequently calls on Americans to think of children in other neighborhoods not as someone else's children, but rather as "our kids."

On Wednesday, the argument was practical.

"If we haven't taken care of them," he said of minority students, "they won't take care of us."

Obama's talk was heavy on economics – and on criticism of presumptive Republican nominee John McCain.

While President Bush's tax cuts may have "offended his conscience" at one point, Obama said of McCain, "He got over that. Now he's all for it."

Now it's time to "end this Bush-Cheney-McCain policy" that "you're on your own," Obama said.

In case anyone had forgotten he is actually still running against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, Obama had a cutting remark for her, too.

Asked by an audience member to comment on Clinton's ad about who should answer the phone at 3 a.m. at a time of national emergency, Obama took a jab.

"The person you want answering the phone at 3 a.m. is the person who has read the intelligence reports," said Obama, "who is asking the tough questions about why we're invading Iraq when it had nothing to do with 9/11."

Clinton, he suggested, did neither.