Barack Obama is Not an Elitist. Plus, Obama Picks Up Pittsburgh Paper's Endorsement.

(Barack Obama posing with his Kenyan grandmother)

The elitist label has been thrown at Barack Obama a lot recently but he came from very humble roots. A lot of this information has already been mentioned but I think it is important to remind us all of where Obama has come from.

Like many American's, Obama came from a single parent household. His mother had to take food stamps at one point to get by and keep food on the table. "I know what it's like to see a mother get sick and worry that maybe she can't pay the bills," he said at a building-trade conference in Washington on Tuesday.That kind of environment surely affected Obama and helped inspire him to work with the poor in inner-city Chicago and fight for better living conditions amongst other things.

In order to serve the people, he gave up a lucrative career with a big law firm which is not the normal path for people with the level of education that he scratched and clawed for to attain. He had no trust fund to pay the cost of his studies. He had to take out loans and rely upon scholarships. In fact, he only recently just payed off his student loans accrued while attending college.

Barack's father grew up herding goats in Kenya and was also a domestic servant to the British. His mother grew up in a small town in Kansas. Like Barack, his father was only able to attend college because of scholarships that he won which enabled him to leave Kenya for America to work toward the American Dream.

Obama's maternal grandfather worked on oil rigs during the Great Depression, signed up with the military after Pearl Harbor and fought in Europe with Patton's army. His maternal grandmother worked on a bomber assembly line and after the war both went to school thanks to the G.I. bill. They bought a house via the Federal Housing Program.

As a product of a diverse background, Barack Obama is uniquely positioned to understand and appeal to Americans of all races, classes and religions. His roots also make him the perfect candidate for president to best appeal to the international community. Having lived abroad for a time in Indonesia and being part African he personally knows how much of the world works and the problems that it faces. It also gives him a unique view of how the developing world sees America which gives him a direct perspective and enables him to better deal with diverse countries. He is the candidate to represent the next chapter in America who can bring American credibility back and show that we have learned from the mistakes of the last eight years.

PITTSBURGH PAPER ENDORSES OBAMA:

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said, Obama and Hillary Clinton are equally prepared to be president and united in their opposition to President Bush's policies. But it is Obama who is the candidate for the future, the newspaper said in urging voters to pick him in next Tuesday's crucial primary.

"Like two opposing armies marching to a new Gettysburg, the forces of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton come to this latest battlefield symbolizing two views of America -- one of the past, one of the future. Pennsylvania Democrats need to rise to the historic moment," the endorsement editorial said."The litany of criticisms heaped on Sen. Obama by the Clinton camp, simultaneously doing the work of the Republicans, is as illustrative as anything of which one is which. These are the cynical responses of the old politics to the new.

The Post-Gazette is a major media voice in western Pennsylvania, where Clinton so far is polling better than Obama, thanks to the support of blue-collar white voters.

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