Ohio Valley Politics

Yesterday I took place in what will surely be one of the most memorable events of my life. I saw both Democratic presidential candidates speak on the same day about a topic I find extremely important, trade and manufacturing. This all took place at the Alliance for American Manufacturing’s candidates forum in Pittsburgh, PA.

Both candidates spoke for about 45 minutes to an hour, including a short question & answer session. Obama spoke in the morning, with Clinton’s speech ending the days events around noon. A panel on trade filled the time between the two speeches. It was mentioned that John McCain was invited to attend, but declined. This was met with a round of laughter. McCain did manage to find time in his schedule to visit Pittsburgh today however, where he discussed other parts of the economy in front of a friendly audience.

Obama seemed to be the crowd favorite, receiving multiple standing ovations. He did take a few shots at Clinton and respond to claims of “elitism”, but he mostly stuck to the topic at hand.

Clinton’s speech started out on a bad note. She made an allegation that Obama had spent most of his speech attacking her was met with grumbles from the crowd and even some people shouting “no”. Clinton soon recovered though, when she moved on to policy issues. During the Q&A session she deflected a somewhat loaded question over her husbands support of NAFTA by saying that “As smart as my husband is, he does make mistakes”, cutting through tension and providing an opening for a more serious answer about renegotiating NAFTA.

I think both Obama and Clinton demonstrated that they both understand the plight of the American worker. Policy-wise, the aren’t all that different. They both promised to do a better job at enforcing our trade agreements in their current form and to work to renegotiate them to give American workers a level playing field.

It was said at one point that this event was organized in only 11 days, though you wouldn’t have been able to tell it by looking around. Things ran quickly and efficiently. I, the worlds biggest complainer, was greatly impressed.

I’m sure they’re be several other posts related to the forum posted over the next couple days as I review my recordings of the forum. You’ll be able to find all past and future posts on this topic here.