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Ballot Bowl 2008

Candidate Appearances Leading Up to Indiana and North Carolina Primaries

Aired May 04, 2008 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to CNN's BALLOT BOWL. I'm Jessica Yellin coming to you live from Indianapolis, Indiana, with the CNN "Election Express," here in Indiana and in North Carolina. Both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama are campaigning furiously ahead of the primaries that take place in these two states on Tuesday. Very tight contest, particularly here in Indiana where both candidates are in a fierce battle of words over the best ways to solve our economic crises and particularly bring down the price of gas. We will get into all of that ahead on BALLOT BOWL. But first I want to bring in my colleague and co-anchor, Suzanne Malveaux who is also in the state of Indiana following the campaign along with me. Hi, Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Jessica. You're absolutely right. It is really incredible. The game plan for this hour, jam packed as the candidates crisscross across Indiana. I'm here in Ft. Wayne. Now earlier today, we saw Senator Clinton at a rally with supporters in South Bend, Indiana. We'll bring that to you. But also, we're going to see Senator Barack Obama here in Ft. Wayne. It's kind of like the casual picnic setting. There's hamburgers, hot dogs, and barbecues, this type of thing. Families coming in, balloons, the whole bit, obviously meant to attract a lot of the families who are here in Ft. Wayne as both of these candidates desperately trying to win over the state. But first before we get to those events, I want to go back to you, Jessica.

YELLIN: Thanks, Suzanne. And you know, we keep focusing on these primaries coming up on Tuesday. But there was a vote that took place over this weekend. Yesterday, Guam held - well it's called a caucus but it's really a state-run primary where people literally cast a ballot just like a primary and the candidates could not have had a closer race. Barack Obama won there, but by just seven votes. His total there was 50.1 percent of the vote while Senator Clinton got 49.9 percent of the vote. They basically split the four delegates there, each netting two delegates. So they come out not any different than they were in the delegate split before, which only raises the stakes for Tuesday. Each of them, of course, trying to get ahead, get as much of the delegate count racked up on their side as they can and also the popular vote.

So what we're seeing right now are both candidates making aggressive closing arguments ahead of this upcoming Tuesday primary. This was Barack Obama really selling his audience on why he wants to be president of the United States, why he thinks he's different from Senator Clinton. Obama here in Indiana yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My patriotism, my belief in America is on the simple idea that if anybody on earth or if anybody in this country wants to do something, if they want to succeed, if they want to support a family, find a job that pays a living wage, have health care they can count on, send their kids to college, even if they're not wealthy, retire with dignity and respect. This is the country where they can make that happen. But if you're willing to work, if you're willing to try, then you can succeed.

And the reason I decided to run for president was that for a lot of people these days, that American dream feels like it's slipping out of reach. I can't tell you how many families I meet who have seen their jobs shift overseas and suddenly they don't have not only a job but they don't have health care, they don't have a pension. They're competing with their teenage kids for jobs at the local fast food joint paying $7, $8 an hour.

I can't tell you how many people I meet who are scrambling at the end of every month just to pay the bills, even if they've got two jobs, because the cost of gas and the cost of health care premiums or the cost of food have gone up and up and up. At the same time as wages and income have actually gone down for the average Indiana, have actually gone down for the average American.

I can't tell you how many families I meet where somebody, a loved one has fought two or three tours in Iraq and when they come back they're not getting the same G.I. bill that my grandfather got. They're not getting the same benefits. In some cases they're not even getting treatment for post traumatic stress disorder. They end up on the streets homeless because nobody was back here looking after them. And the government gave lip service to patriotism but didn't follow through and didn't put money where their mouth was.

And most of all, I can't tell you how many people I've met who not only are worried about their own circumstances but think that maybe their children and their grandchildren aren't going to do as well as they did. And that's a violation of the American dream. And so the reason you're here, even though it's a little chilly outside, is not just because you think I'm a nice guy and Michelle is so wonderful. You know, although she is wonderful. But it's because you believe just like I believe that the American dream is worth fighting for and that it's not enough for each of us just to fight for it individually. We've got to fight for it together and we've got to have a government that's fighting to keep the American dream alive for all people.

That's what's at stake in this election. That's what's at stake. At a time when millions of people are losing their jobs, when wages and incomes aren't going up, when people are at risk of losing their homes because of the foreclosure crisis, where people don't have health care, when we still got a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged that killed over 50 young Americans just last month, then we know that we've got to change something fundamentally and those changes are not going to happen unless we change how Washington does business.

And that's really the choice in this election. Are we going to keep on doing the same things we've been doing for years and years and years with nothing ever happening. Or are we going to decide this time, in this moment, we're going to bring about fundamental change in our politics, that will deliver fundamental change in the lives of the American people. That's what's at stake in this election.

If we choose to bring about fundamental change, let me tell you the three things we're going to need. Number one, we're going to need to put an end to the dominance of special interest in Washington. Senator Clinton and I disagree on this. She said she thinks lobbyist represents real Americans. I don't think they're representing you. I think they're representing oil companies and insurance companies and drug companies and gas companies and banks and financial institutions. But they're not representing your interests. And so it is important that we have a politics that is listening to you and representing you.

That's why at the beginning of this campaign I said I wouldn't take back money and I wouldn't take money from federal registered lobbyist because I don't want to be accountable to them. I want to be accountable to you. That's the only way we're going to bring about real change in America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YELLIN: Barack Obama promising to improve average Americans economic circumstances by changing the way business is done in Washington. He also proposes enacting an immediate middle class tax cut and a tax cut for seniors. But his plans do diverge from Senator Clinton's and I want to go to Suzanne Malveaux who again is in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. She's going to talk a little bit, Suzanne, about Senator Clinton. She's also proposing to fix the economy but she sees things a little differently, doesn't she?

MALVEAUX: She does, Jessica. And really to give you a sense how Obama and Clinton are competing for the same voters, he's going to be here momentarily, but she was here earlier today in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. She is really stressing the issues that voters are asking questions about. That is the health care, that is about the housing crisis, about home foreclosures that have been devastating to so many voters here in Indiana. Let's just take a little listen at what she says that her plan's specifics about how she wants to help these voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am going to give you the support that we need together to change things. You know, when the mortgage crisis broke, I said we needed to take action immediately. And freeze foreclosures, because there were a lot of people who are being taken advantage of by these predatory mortgage lenders. I've been all over this state and I've met people who got them, you know, selves into a mortgage they didn't understand. Sometimes there was an inflated appraisal that raised the cost to them. They did not know that it happened. Sometimes they were given false information about what their obligations would be. And Indiana has had more than its share of foreclosures, 30,000 last year. And a lot of folks are facing it today because we can't get this administration to do what we must.

Well, I've said very clearly we should freeze foreclosures. Help people work out a way to stay in their homes. A lot of people can pay what they're paying now, they just can't pay what they would have to pay if the interest rates go up. And there's one particular group of people, and I see someone here in the audience in uniform that I'm specially concerned about.

Well, our young men and women are serving our country overseas, their homes are being foreclosed on. And I hear it all the time. I'm introducing legislation to say look, at the very least we need to stop home foreclosures of our soldiers in combat. We need to take care of them while they're taking care of us.

Now, Senator Obama doesn't agree with me in making a home foreclosure moratorium. But I think what I've proposed will finally begin to get a little more balance in the scales, because if you think about it, we've been really out of balance under George Bush. You've got the wealthy, the well connected, the cronies, the no-bit contracts. They sure have been taken care of. And everybody else has been left to fend for themselves. I think we need a president to put the thumb back on the bell and said get it right for the vast majority of our country.

And when it comes to one of the biggest problems we have, namely how are we going to get affordable health care for everybody, I am proposing action that will cover everyone with affordable health care. And it's not government run. It's real simple. We're going to take a plan that already exists that provides health care to members of Congress and federal employees, 9 million federal employees. We're going to open it up to Hoosiers and Americans so you can have the same option.

I was in North Carolina at one of my stops and, you know, a woman said to me that she heard her local republican congressman talking about how I wanted to socialize medicine. And she said, well what do you say about that? I said, well, that's real interesting because my plan builds on what already works. It's uniquely American. It uses private insurance companies. So next time you see your congressman, ask him how he likes socialized medicine, because I want everybody to have what he has. I don't see how the republicans are going to stand up to that. Why don't they give to you what they take for themselves that you pay 75 percent of the cost of? I don't think that's right.

When we have 47 million uninsured Americans, and millions more with insurance that doesn't cover what they need. The only way we're going to get costs down is to get everybody covered. I'll tell you a quick story, because I just did a television show with George Stephanopoulos on ABC and we had some Hoosiers in the audience asking me questions. And afterwards I answered more questions for people who stuck around. And I was talking to a woman who works at a hospital, and we were talking about how we have to change the whole health care system so it works better for everybody.

I told her about an experiment that one of our big companies, Safeway grocery stores, mostly out on the West Coast did. Has a very conservative president and chief executive officer who just couldn't believe how much health care costs were going up. And he said to himself, there's got to be something better we can do. But it's very hard for any business to control costs because there's so much else that influences it. But he decided he has a couple hundred thousand employees. He decided to take 30,000 of them, put them in a special program and pay for prevention. In other words, if you're a smoker, they would pay for you to quit. If you're overweight, they would pay for you to go to nutrition and exercise classes. They paid for mammograms, they pay for PSA test. They would pay for prevention.

You know, he was hoping that the costs would just stay the same and not keep going up. His cost went down 15 percent. Because he took a pool of people and he basically said we're going to help you here. We're going to give you all the health insurance that you need, but you've got to respond by taking better care of yourself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: That's Senator Hillary Clinton here in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, earlier today, stressing a lot of the policy issues, the issues that voters have been asking about, health care as well as the housing crisis. Now, you're not going to want to miss tomorrow. Tomorrow is CNN's special edition of BALLOT BOWL. It's going to start at 9:00 in the morning. It's going to go until 4:00 in the afternoon and it really is your chance to get a sense of the closing arguments from these two candidates, Barack Obama, Senator Clinton, and even John McCain.

Some of the arguments that they're making to voters, why it is so important leading up to that Tuesday primary to vote for them. So, again, BALLOT BOWL, a special edition from 9:00 until 4:00. You'll hear those candidates live. We'll turn around that tape as quickly as possible and also take those events live so voters can get those closing arguments from those candidates.

Now, on the other side of the break from BALLOT BOWL, we're also going to hear from the republican presumptive nominee John McCain and he's going to be talking about something that a lot of folks are talking about, gas prices and his own plan on how to lower those prices. He's talking about a holiday for that federal gas tax for at least consumers during those summer months when those prices are so high and the demand is also very high. That on the other end of this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

YELLIN: Welcome back to CNN's BALLOT BOWL. I'm Jessica Yellin in Indianapolis, Indiana with the CNN "Election Express." And you see it in the polls, I hear it talking to voters here in Indianapolis. The economy is the number one issue on American's minds as they look at the upcoming election. We just heard both Senators Obama and Clinton talk about their plans to improve the economy. John McCain has a very different approach in many respects. We keep hearing about his gas tax holiday. He was the first to propose that but he is also promising other steps to reduce government spending by eliminating earmarks. He also promises to extend certain tax cuts. Let's listen to John McCain talk about his economic plans beyond just the gas tax holiday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Americans are hurting today. The latest jobs report, although not maybe as bad as some had predicted, is still bad. Unemployment continues up. Americans are suddenly and recently losing their jobs. Many of them are worrying about how they're going to keep their home, how they're going to afford health care, how they're going to keep their insurance. And Americans are going through tough times now, my friends. And I don't think we can sugarcoat it. I think that these are enormous challenges and they affect every level of American society and specially those working men and women, many of whom are holding two jobs and trying to educate their children and keep their home.

This morning and this evening, families will be sitting around the kitchen table trying to figure out how they can afford their new home loan mortgage payments and they are also trying to figure out how to keep their health care, help to keep their insurance and keep their job. So these are tough times in America. And I have a plan of action to fix our economy, to make sure that Americans remain in their home and also to realize the American dream to be able to educate their children and hand off to the next generation of Americans a better America than the one that we inherited. That's been the legacy of every generation of Americans.

And so today, we want to talk about health care, but I would be glad to talk about all the other issues. Before I do, I just want to talk to you about a modest proposal that I had a couple of weeks ago, which seems to have created a firestorm, particularly among the special interests that ride around in chauffeured limousines inside the beltway in Washington. And that is, and that is a suspension, a holiday between Memorial Day and Labor Day for Americans to not have to pay the 18 1/2 cent gallon gas tax the next time they go to the gasoline station to get their tank filled up.

And in the case of diesel, 24 cents per gallon. My friends, the price of a gallon of gas continues up. Why don't we give American working men and women a little break for the summer, just a little break for the summer? I mean, it's not the end of western civilization we know it. We may not be able to fund the $230 million bridge in Alaska to an island with 50 people on it. We may not be able to send $10 million to a county in Florida that said they didn't even want it. And we may not fund a whole bunch of the pork barrel unnecessary wasteful projects, absolutely wasteful projects that are put in, in the middle of the night in these spending bills that have nothing to do with need or priority but everything to do with the corrupting process that makes it dependent on the influence and power of an individual member of congress or a senator.

And I say corrupting process because members of -- former members of Congress are now residing in federal prison. I'm going to stop that practice. I'm going to stop that pork barrel earmarking wasteful spending practice and I will veto every single pork barrel bill that comes across my desk. Meanwhile, Senator Obama and Senator Clinton have gotten hundreds of millions of dollars in pork barrel earmark projects, one of them being the Woodstock Cultural Museum, in case you missed that one.

A $1 million of your tax dollars. Senator Obama got a whole bunch of money for the seed museum. You know, with the Americans and the problem that they're in today, do we need to spend millions on a seed museum? I don't think so. So they want business as usual in Washington, they want the pork barrel, Senator Obama wants the earmark projects to go on and I want to give the American consumer a little bit of relief.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YELLIN: All right. John McCain talking about his economic plan. Some of the other elements of his economic proposals, he proposes cutting the tax rate for corporations from its current 35 percent to just 25 percent. That's for corporations and for individuals, he would permanently eliminate that wildly unpopular alternative minimum tax. He would get rid of that. He'd also extend President Bush's tax cuts. Those are just some of the pillars of John McCain's economic proposals.

Well, we are also keeping an eye on what's going on right now because we bring you that live unfiltered coverage and we are going to give you a look right now at president, former President Bill Clinton who is campaigning in Lenoir, North Carolina, for his wife. And Senator Hillary Clinton is also just taking the stage right near me. She's in South Bend, Indiana. Governor Evan Bayh, one of her strongest supporters in the state is speaking right now. We're going to bring you both Clintons, splitting the difference, covering both bases on the other side of this break. So stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

YELLIN: Welcome back to CNN's BALLOT BOWL. We're watching two live events at this moment involving the Clintons, former president Bill Clinton. He is in Lenoir, North Carolina. This is just one of six urban -- rather rural areas that he's canvassing today. Obviously, Hillary Clinton not giving up on that rural vote. And certainly not giving up on North Carolina but is expected really to favor Barack Obama. So we see him in Lenoir. That is where he is. And then also Senator Hillary Clinton, she is in South Bend, Indiana.

Indiana, the other key critical state in Tuesday's primary. Let's take a quick listen to the former President Bill Clinton making his pitch for his wife in North Carolina.

BILL CLINTON, FMR. PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES: ... million jobs, doing what other smart, wealthy countries are doing, repeal the subsidies to the oil companies, the energy companies and invest it in homegrown clean energy and energy conservation projects that will put millions of people to work. You tell me any other strategy that will produce jobs in every county in America. That we can make more energy efficient every school, every hospital, every college building, every government building.

I do this work now all over America in my foundation. You can pay for it entirely through lower electric bills. You put people to work. You would stop the green house gas emissions, you give the power company back clean power and once you pay the bill off, your utility bill is lower forever, which for many people is better than a tax cut. It will create 5 million jobs and we can pile 3 million right on top of it by fixing our roads, our bridges, our water systems. Every one of these things will make us more energy efficient and will cut our energy bills. This is important.

She also thinks we can bring manufacturing back to America. Hillary is the co-chairman of the bipartisan manufacturing caucus but she knows to do it, you're going to have to change the tax code that now encourages people to move jobs overseas, get rid of that provision and put one in to encourage people to invest in places like Lenoir. We can do that.

The second reason you ought to vote for her is that she is --

YELLIN: Polls showing that Barack Obama ahead in North Carolina, but the Clintons are having none of that. They are certainly hoping that that is going to be a competitive state. Polls showing that his lead has at last narrowed. So that's former president Bill Clinton in North Carolina, pitching for his wife.

Now we're going to go to Senator Hillary Clinton as she is in South Bend, Indiana, and that is where she's addressing the one thing that everybody is talking about, that's the state of the economy. Take a listen.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You have to have labor and environmental standards that will be enforced in order for it to work for our workers and our consumers. And I will get tough on China, because it is manipulating its currency. It is violating the trade rules it agreed to. It is not following what should be the standard for health and safety for consumers and workers. Our jobs go over there, what do we get back? Lead laced toys, contaminated pet food and polluted pharmaceuticals. That is going to end.

And we need a president who takes the long view about how to create new jobs. I have no doubt that we can create millions of new jobs. I've been talking all the time. Could I get a lozenges or something? We've been talking for days now. A glass of water. We -- that's why we need universal health care.

(CROWD): Hillary! Hillary!

CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you very much. You know, because I think we can create at least 5 million new jobs from clean, renewable energy. I have a very specific plan. You heard Evan talk about how we need higher gas mileage cars, cars made right here in America by American auto workers. Cars that will give us the advantage we need to wean ourselves off this addiction to foreign oil. That we can once again stand proud because we are not beholden to anybody anywhere in the world the way we are right now.

We use more foreign oil today because we did on 9/11 because President Bush has no policy to do anything to help us end that addiction. I have a very specific policy for higher gas mileage cars. And I have in my plan a $10,000 credit to help you buy a hybrid because we want you to buy new cars that get higher gas mileage fuel. And on my Website, which I invite you to go to, hillaryclinton.com, it's laid out there how move to renewable energy for electricity, and how we use what we make right here in America, right here in Indiana, biofuels, use the sun, use the wind, use geothermal.

And there is no doubt that we can make coal cleaner, but we have to do it, we have to get about the business of beginning to chart that new future. But it's also imperative that we provide immediate relief. A couple of days ago, I was with a young man who was born and raised here in South Bend. I drove to work with him in his pickup truck and we stopped to fill up the gas tank. And it was a pretty depressing experience for him, took $63 to fill up half a tank. Everywhere I go people are talking about how much this is biting into their budget.

Because the high gas prices affect everything we do, it's one of the reasons why we have high grocery prices. So I've said let's try to get immediate relief. Yes, we have to have the long-term, but that is going to take a couple of years to get it implemented. What are we going to do right now? There are a lot of people who drive for a living, who commute long distances to their jobs, who are dependent upon their car. Yes, in a couple of years I want to buy a hybrid that gets 50 miles to the gallon. But what is happening right now is making it difficult to afford everything else you have to pay for. So I've got a four-point plan to give you immediate relief right now to go after the gas prices.

Number one, I think there's a lot of market manipulation in this oil market. I am convinced of it. And there's no doubt in my mind that the energy traders are making a killing. They are unregulated. I bet some of you have followed this. They are able to trade oil at whatever price they decide to set to manipulate the supply. If you look at what we're paying now, about $120 a barrel, and you compare it to what an executive of Exxon Mobil said in sworn testimony last month before the Congress, he said that if it were just market fundamentals, namely supply and demand, driving the oil price would be $50 to $55 a barrel. So as president, I would launch a --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YELLIN: That's Senator Clinton in South Bend, Indiana talking about the nation's energy challenges, some short-term and long-term solutions. We're going to take a break for her just a moment. We want to bring you something a little different. This off the campaign trail, but you recall a tornado hit the town of Greensburg, Kansas a year ago and killed 11 people. Today there's a graduation ceremony for their high school, 18 kids graduating there. President George Bush is speaking at their high school commencement. The first time he has spoken at any high school graduation. Let's listen to what he has to say to these kids.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE U.S: Even though you're always on the road, they tell me you always had a home crowd. When your boy's basketball team made it to the sub state finals, nearly every person in this town turned out. The team even got a police escort. They say it was bigger than the one I got. Your fans rushed to the court after you won on a buzzer beater to advance to the state tournament for the first time in 30 years and I have been told that the first person to spring out of the stands was Principal Fulton.

The basketball team finished with a great record and along with all of your other school teams, it's given this good town a lot to cheer about. As a class of 2008 ventures into the world, your hometown will always be a source of stability and comfort and pride. Where many of your parenting and grand parents grew up. Where you went to church with your neighbors on Sundays. Where you wanted home to be after the storm. So wherever you go, you will be able to rely on the ties of family and your faith and your friends that were forged here and you'll always carry Greensburg, Kansas, in your heart.

The Greensburg class of 2008 has learned that Americans will always rebuild stronger and better than before. Often in life, you're dealt a hand that you did not expect. The test of a community and the test of an individual is how you play the hand. Over the past seven years I've seen Americans in communities across our country overcome some tough hands. I've seen the resolve of the American spirit in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the flood waters of hurricane Katrina, eight hurricanes in Florida, tornadoes in states like Missouri, Tennessee and Alabama, wildfires in southern California and Oregon.

I saw the same resolve and the same determination in the people of Greensburg, Kansas. When I visited Greensburg last year, I remember walking your streets. And I remember meeting Kay Hardinger. She was standing outside the wreckage of her home. She took a look at me and said, I would have invited you in for coffee but she didn't have time to dust. Today Kay lives in a trailer with her family in a nearby town but she continues to plan for the day when she and her family move back to Greensburg and rebuild.

And Kay, when that day comes, fire up the coffee pot. When I visited Greensburg, I also met a man named Kelly Estes, a John Deere dealer. I remember walking with Kelly and his wife and his family through the rubble after that storm hit. He lost more than $18 million worth of equipment but he was ready to look for the future. After caring for his employees who had lost their homes, he began making plans to bring his business back to Greensburg.

Earlier this year, he broke ground on a new dealership that will be a model of energy efficiency, create more than two dozen new jobs and inject new vitality into the Greensburg economy. People like Kay and Kelly are part of a more hopeful future for your city. The leaders of your town understand that out of the devastation of the storm comes an opportunity to rebuild with a free hand and a clean slate. They envision a future where new jobs flourish, where every public building meets the highest environmental standards and where the beauty of rural America meets the great possibilities of new technology. The community is dedicated to putting the green in Greensburg. [Applause] and as you work to achieve --

YELLIN: All right, President Bush speaking in Greensburg, Kansas. The tornado that hit there was the worst in U.S. history. When President Bush visited there after the devastation, he promised brighter days ahead and he's there today to congratulate these graduating seniors on the progress they have made at the end of the speech, he's going to personally hand each of those 18 graduating seniors their diplomas.

When we come back, we're going to come back to the campaign trail, drop in on Hillary Clinton speaking here in Indiana. Also Barack Obama in Indiana and Bill Clinton is in North Carolina. The other state that votes on Tuesday. So stay with us. We'll bring it all to you on the other side of this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Welcome back to CNN's BALLOT BOWL. We're watching three live events simultaneously here the former president Bill Clinton in Lenoir, North Carolina. That is where he's stumping for his wife, Hillary Clinton. This is just one of six rural areas that he's hitting today in an effort to try to win over that state, that critical state in the Tuesday primary.

We're also watching the live event, Senator Hillary Clinton in South Bend, Indiana. That is where she's reaching out, talking about the issues that they have been asking her about, health care, gas prices, the housing crises, mortgage foreclosures. I'm here in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. This is where there's a family picnic that's taking place with Barack Obama and his family, his wife Michelle and their two little girls who, 6 and 9 years old.

One of them just shouted "vote for my daddy on Tuesday." We'll have all of these live events on the end of this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Welcome back to CNN's BALLOT BOWL. I'm Suzanne Malveaux, here in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. This is Barack Obama, he just took the stage. They're calling this a family picnic. His full family Michelle and his two daughters Sasha and Malia (ph) are here. Let's take a listen at Barack Obama addressing the crowd.

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I just want to say that I started this campaign 15 months ago. It's been a long journey. In fact, there are children who have been born and are now walking and talking in this audience. There's one right there, since I started this race for the White House. And when I decided that I was running, I remember there were a number of people who said, you know, Barack, you're a relatively young man. Why are you running this time? Why are you running so soon?

You can afford to wait. And I had to explain I'm not running because of some ambitions or because -- I'm running because of what Dr. King called the fierce urgency of now. The fierce urgency of now, because I believe there's such a thing as being too late. And that hour is almost upon us. You can see it all across the country and all across Indiana. People are struggling just to get by. We just went through the first economic expansion during George Bush in which family incomes actually went down by $1,000.

So people are seeing less income, fewer wages, and jobs being shipped overseas. And when people lose their jobs, when the plant closes, you don't just lose your job, you lose your health care and you lose your pension. And more than that, you lose your sense of who you are and your place in your community. Your sense of dignity. Your ability to support a family. And at the same time, the cost of everything has been going up, the cost of gas, the cost of food, the cost of health care.

In fact, 47 million people don't have health care at all. And if you've got health care, you've seen your premiums and your co-pays and deductibles going up and up and up. People are worried about whether they can retire and save for the future. Whether they can finance their child's college education. And at the same time, there are families all across Indiana who are struggling with the fact that their loved ones are on their second or third tours of duty in a war that I believe should have never been authorized and should have never been waged.

In such circumstances, we can't afford to wait, Ft. Wayne. We can't wait to fix our schools. We can't wait to fix our health care system. We cannot wait to bring back good jobs or good wages here to Indiana. We can't wait to bring this war in Iraq to a close. We can't wait. That's why I'm running right now for president of the United States of America. But understand this that this campaign is not about me, it's also about you. Because the fact of the matter is, when I decided to get in this race, I was betting on you, that you were tired of a politics about tearing each other down.

You wanted politics that was about lifting the country up. That you were tired of spin and pr from your politicians. That you wanted honesty and truthfulness. You wanted some straight talk out of your leadership. And I also believe that when we unify this country, when we came together just like this, this wonderful auditorium looks like today with black and white and Hispanic and Asian and native American and young and old and rich and poor.

I was sure that when we come together, nobody could stop us. No challenge is too great. No mountain is too steep to climb. I'm here to tell you this, after 15 months and 46 states, speaking to hundreds of thousands of people and shaking hundreds of thousands of hands, kissing hundreds of babies, I am here to report that my bet is paid off because the American people have stood up and they have said we want something new, we want something different. We're going to move this country in a new direction and it will start right here in Indiana on Tuesday, if you're with me.

MALVEAUX: Senator Barack Obama here in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, in a family picnic setting saying that he's going to be addressing the issues that voters care about, most notably the cost of groceries as well as health care and gas and those type of things. We're going to bring much, much more of these candidates in a special edition of CNN's BALLOT BOWL, that is going to be tomorrow starting at early as 9:00 in the morning and it is going until 4:00 in the afternoon. This is your chance to get to see these candidates live, unfiltered as they make their way across North Carolina and Indiana, leading up to that critical primary. We're going to bring more of the live coverage of all of these candidates after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Rob Marciano at the CNN Center in Atlanta. More BALLOT BOWL in a moment, but first a look at today's news headlines. R&R in Central America, rest and relaxation means different things to different people. Here's what it meant to some U.S. troops in Honduras who just finished a tour of Iraq. Our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has that story.

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BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Air force chaplain Jeremy Bastion leads U.S. troops into the hills of Honduras. After crossing a river, we hiked deep into the countryside. These troops have donated $900 of their own money to buy food for the people here. They are backpacking to remote villages to distribute more than 200 bags of food to people who desperately need it. Before the morning is over, many of these troops fresh from Iraq say this journey to help others helps them heal from months of combat.

LT. COL. GREGORY JICHA, U.S. ARMY: We've got a lot of guys that come straight from the war zone here and it takes them a while to adjust.

STARR: Lt. Col. Gregory Jicha says it's great to see the children smile.

JICHA: You can see the children and you realize that they're not that much different from -- they're not different from the kids we have back home.

STARR: The need for help is enormous. Crops have failed in this area, just as the price of rice, flour and beans has skyrocketed. While shopping a day earlier, the chaplain had to make a grim decision, beans were too expensive.

CAPT. JEREMY BASTION, U.S. AIR FORCE: We had to pass up buying beans and to had to buy something that is smaller so we can distribute to more of the people.

STARR: This is a pure volunteer effort. Not part of the official U.S. military mission in Central America. This is enthusiasm the Pentagon just can't order up. The children get stickers, toys and candy. This mother says food prices now make it hard for her to feed her four children. For Major Mike Angell, another war veteran, this is part of his journey back from the front lines.

MAJ. MIKE ANGELL, U.S. ARMY: Kind of -- to see what can be as far as relations go between countries. After 12 months, 15 months in Iraq, you start feeling like no matter what you go; somebody is trying to do something to you personally.

STARR: Here, the American troops get to do something personal for the people in these hills. Barbara Starr, CNN, Honduras.

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MARCIANO: And for more on the global food crises, check out our "Impact Your World" page at CNN.com/impact. The next hour of BALLOT BOWL starts right after this break.

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