As Primary Nears, Obama Takes His Family to Voters
FT. WAYNE, IND. -- With help from his wife and daughters, Barack Obama closed his final days of campaigning before Tuesday's primaries by knocking on doors and hosting a massive family picnic. Crowds gathered on sidewalks in a working-class neighborhood in Elkhart, Ind., to meet the Obama family.
"Hey! I'm here to look for some votes. Let's go find some votes," Obama said as he got off of his campaign bus with his daughters Sasha, 6, and Malia, 9.
He spoke to voters individually, often talking about gas prices and taking some jabs at his opponents.
"Hillary's saying we can just eliminate the gas tax for 3 months. That would only save you about 30 bucks. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna say I'm gonna give you a tax break for the whole year of about $1,000," he told one voter.
A local woman asked Obama to speak to her friend, Hillary, on her cell phone. Obama joked, "This is Hillary on the phone and she supports me? Oh this isn't Hillary Clinton! Hillary Vandyke. I'm sorry, ok. I was confused."
The Obama family "picnic" drew a crowd of 4,000 to Headwaters Park, where his daughters took the stage for the first time since campaigning with their father. After introducing herself, Sasha said, "Vote for daddy!"
Michelle Obama told the crowd the race has been tough, but that she's proud of her husband's character throughout the campaign.
"I just want to say this, because I don't get a chance to tell my husband how much I love him, this year, over the course of this very tough year, and it has been a tough fought race, Barack has handled himself with a level of grace and dignity."
Obama later admitted to the crowd that his campaign hasn't always been perfect, but argued that it has been positive.
"We haven't spent all our time with negative attacks. We haven't tried to go after the other candidate, we believe that we can all disagree without being disagreeable I believe that this country doesn't want to bicker and fight, they want to roll up their sleeves to solve problems."