Countdown to Election Day

INDIANAPOLIS - Democratic nominee Barack Obama won’t give up on Indiana.

The Illinois senator addressed 35,000 cheering Hoosiers on Thursday in his seventh visit since the May primary, promising voters that if elected, he would fix the economy.

Hoosiers turned out in sub-40 degree temperatures, some waiting since 7 a.m. for the rally Thursday at the American Legion Mall in downtown Indianapolis.

SLIDESHOW: Obama in Indy

The speech was set to begin at 11 a.m. Obama arrived about an hour late, but apologized during his speech. The stop was his first and last of the day before flying to Hawaii to visit his sick grandmother.

With 12 days before the general election, Obama urged Indiana supporters to vote early and fight to move the country in a new direction during the economic crisis.

“It’s not going to be easy, but I’m thrilled about the outcome,” he said. “But we cannot let up. And we won’t. One of the things we know is that change never comes without a fight.”

Obama gave the same pitch he’s been emphasizing for more than a year: relief for the middle class. Obama said he knew they couldn’t wait any longer. He attacked his opponent, Republican nominee John McCain, for giving tax cuts to big corporations and the “average Fortune 500 CEO.”

McCain’s mentality has been “Wall Street first, Main Street last,” Obama said. “That’s fundamentally wrong.”

Bush’s and McCain’s ways have been tried and failed, Obama said.

“We can’t afford four more years of their ‘fundamental economics,’” he said. “We have a different notion of fundamental economics. ... There’s nothing more fundamental than the American Dream.”

Obama’s Thursday campaign stop marked his 47th in Indiana since announcing his candidacy in February 2007. His last stop was a little more than two weeks ago at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis.

David Axelrod, Obama’s chief campaign strategist, was at the event and told the Indiana Daily Student that the Obama campaign has continued to stop in Indiana so late in the season because it doesn’t “want to concede.”

“The fact that he’s here really shows how seriously we take this state,” Axelrod said. Still, he emphasized that the campaign was also “careful to say no one state is essential.”

But a potential win in Indiana would be an “enormous boost,” Axelrod said, adding they’d be looking early on election night to see if Indiana would go blue.

“I think that people are less interested in party labels than they are in real change,” Axelrod said.

People who waited to get a close look and possible handshake with Obama arrived at the event as early as 7 a.m. Ray Lucas of Mooresville, Ind., was one of these people. This is the first political rally he has ever attended and the first election he’s ever felt like getting involved in, he said. The 60-year-old described the opportunity to hear Obama speak as “once in a lifetime.”

“It’s the first time in a long time I’ve wanted to do something,” Lucas said of his involvement in the election.

Obama criticized McCain’s tax plan that would continue cuts for the wealthy.

He asked the audience how many of them made less than a quarter million dollars a year – nearly all hands were raised.

“That seems to be a majority,” he said, laughing. “You won’t see your taxes increase one single dime. ... That’s my commitment to you.”

Obama also addressed how McCain has criticized his tax plan for the middle class by calling it socialism.

“What he forgets is just a few years ago ... he himself said those Bush tax cuts were irresponsible,” Obama said. “He was right then. And I’m right now.”

At last, Obama addressed the issue of how his supporters should tell skeptics how he is planning to pay for all of his new policies and programs.

“You tell them if we can spend $10 billion a month rebuilding Iraq,” he said, “we can spend some money rebuilding the United States of America.”