DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON — Democrat Barack Obama pushed energy independence as a way of protecting national security in his first Miami Valley speech since clinching his party's nomination to run for president.

"For the last eight years, this administration has narrowly defined security as fighting an open-ended war in Iraq," he said on Friday, July 11. "But in the interconnected world of the new century, new threats come from stateless terrorists, loose nuclear weapons, the spread of pandemic disease, an inability to compete with rising powers in the global economy, the threat of global climate change and our dependence on foreign oil."

An enthusiastic crowd of about 1,300 packed the gym at Stivers School for the Arts on East Fifth Street.

Antonio and Nanette Isaacs of Trotwood and their 12-year-old son Azrien said they wanted to see Obama close up and hear his message in person.

"Hearing him in person and seeing him makes it more real," Nanette Isaacs said. "The things he said can be done and I know he believes it."

In the speech, Obama said the U.S. must reduce its growing reliance on foreign oil.

"We have heard promises about energy independence from every single U.S. president since Richard Nixon," he said. "We've heard talk about curbing our use of fossil fuels in nearly every State of the Union address since the oil embargo of 1973. Back then we imported a third of this nation's oil. We now import over half."

In response, Obama said he would spend $15 billion a year investing in clean energy sources and creating fuel-efficeint cars with a goal of reducing oil consumption by 10 million barrels per day by 2030.

Obama and McCain both will return to Ohio to address the national convention of the NAACP next week in Cincinnati. Obama speaks Monday night and McCain will speak Wednesday morning.