Obama Visits His Grandfather's Kansas Hometown
EL DORADO, KAN. -- Barack Obama picked up the endorsement of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, D-Kan., in his grandfather's hometown today.
"Now this is not accidental," Sebelius said.
"Barack Obama has Midwestern values, values that we know about, he got them from his grandparents and his mom. He understands how to bring people together across party lines. He understands how to give people hope for the future."
Obama never lived in Kansas but his mother was born and raised in the state. The crowd of over a couple thousand included a relative of Obama's grandmother and a man who went to high school with his grandfather.
On a conference call with reporters before the event, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said voters tend to gravitate to Obama when they get to know him, and that is what he tried to do today. Obama told the crowd a story of how his grandparents met.
"It's a story that began here, in El Dorado, when a young man fell in love with a young woman who grew up down the road in Augusta," Obama said, "They came of age in the midst of the Depression, where he found odd jobs on small farms and oil rigs, always dodging the bank failures and foreclosures that were sweeping the nation."
He also spoke about his father and mother, and her struggles to raise a family as a single woman.
"My mother struggled as a single parent, and even turned to food stamps for a time," Obama said, "she was still able to send my sister and me to the best schools in the country."
Obama gave a poignant account of his wife Michelle's upbringing in a working-class family before he shifted into his stump speech. However, Obama went full circle and ended the event by speaking about his family again.
"I stand before you today – because there are two little girls I tuck in at night who deserve a world in which they can dream those same big dreams; in which they can have the same chances as any other child living any other place," Obama said, "It is a dream I share for your children and all of our children."