Obama Tells Bon Jovi Fundraiser: 'I Don’t Believe in Coming in Second,'

September 05, 2008 10:18 PM

NEWARK, N.J. -- Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., hit a couple swanky Garden State fundraisers this evening, starting at the house of Democratic National Committee treasurer Phil Murphy and his wife Tammy.

“Are you guys fired up?” bellowed Gov. Jon Corzine to the $2,300-per-person crowd. “You better be, because I think you’re liquored up!”

Obama again said that the GOP convention didn’t discuss solutions to problems facing ordinary Americans, unlike the Democratic gathering.

“The Republicans had a different approach to their convention,” he said. “They had a different theory, which was that ‘We are just sarcastic. We spent a lot of time talking about John McCain’s admittedly compelling biography, and we spent a lot of time lying about Barack’ -- that, somehow that’s a political philosophy or an economic theory.”

Obama told the appreciative crowd, “They don’t have a record to run on, so what they’re going to do is they’re going to try and just tear me down. Because it worked four years ago, and it worked eight years ago, you can’t blame them for trying it again, but I don’t think it’s going to work this time.”

Next stop: the manse of Jon and Dorothea Bon Jovi, or “The House That 'Young Guns II' Built.”

“You don’t have to be 72 to have experience,” said the host as he introduced Obama. “It’s the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. This 21st century man has an aura of hope wrapped around him.”

Obama told the $30,800-per-person attendees -– the money goes to a joint Obama campaign-DNC fund -- that he hoped they were “up for a fight.”

“I hope you guys are game,” he said, “because I haven’t been putting up with 19 months of airplanes and hotel food and missing my babies and my wife –- I didn’t put up for that stuff just to come in second. I don’t believe in coming in second. The American people can’t afford for us to come in second. We’ve got to win this thing and we’re going to win it with your help.”

Obama said that the assignment of his Republican opponents is “to see if they can snuff out that spirit in this campaign and to knock me down more than one peg,” he said. “The reason that events like this are so important, we’ve got to have the resources and the energy and the determination to say ‘No’ to that. To say 'enough.' We’re not going to be bullied, we’re not going to be smeared, we’re not going to be lied about. We’re not going to resort to the same tactics, but we are going to confront them.”

Curiously -- "Livin' On a Prayer," perhaps? -- Obama suggested that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., possibly doesn’t even approve of the campaign he is waging.

“I think some of you saw this week the strategy of the other side,” Obama said. “A strategy that, I’d be willing to venture, that if you asked John McCain, ‘Is this the kind of campaign he intended,' he might have said, 'No.'”

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/i-dont-believe.html

i will do my part to try to get his side out there, his position on issues and what he intends to do for the people.

...while McCain is doing that for the Republicans.

But ideally, the law would be changed to either bar presidential candidates from raising money for their parties, or the maximum donations to the parties would be lowered.

watch then translate it to gopease.

That's the funny Obama I remember from a few years ago, before it became to risky for him to be entirely himself. I hope we see lots more of that once he is elected.

Still very funny. :rofl:

Fired UP!

"I hope you guys are game,” he said, “because I haven’t been putting up with 19 months of airplanes and hotel food and missing my babies and my wife –- I didn’t put up for that stuff just to come in second. I don’t believe in coming in second. The American people can’t afford for us to come in second. We’ve got to win this thing and we’re going to win it with your help.”

:patriot: From this American person:party: :bounce: :kick:

or random times throughout Obama's day that just get me completely excited! "I don't believe in coming in second." It's such a simple statement, but it carries such a heavy impact both for us and the goals of this campaign.

He knows exactly what the repukes are going to try to do to him, and on a mental level of preparation, he's very, very ready, anticipating the next move and the move after that just perfectly.

GO OBAMA/BIDEN '08!!

a believer outta me:patriot: :party: :kick:

Obama got some fight in him. He didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday. He knew what the Repukes would do. I'm positive he has their card in his back pocket!