DaytonDailyNews.com

FAIRBORN — Sen. Barack Obama packed the Nutter Center like a rock star on Monday, Feb. 25, painting himself as a man who will cut through petty partisanship and bring real change to Washington.

"I am running now because of what Dr. (Martin Luther) King called the 'fierce urgency of now,'" Obama said during his speech before an estimated 11,000 people.

"I think there is such a thing of being too late. And that hour is nearly upon us," said Obama, on his first visit to the Dayton area in his campaign to beat Sen. Hillary Clinton in the March 4 Democratic presidential primary in Ohio.

"Our nation is at war. Our planet is in peril."

He said there is no time to wait to end the Iraq war and global warming or to fix the schools and health care system. And he called on ordinary people to make those things happen.

"I am in this fight for you to give a voice to you, to champion your cause," Obama said. "But I can't do it by myself."

His message obviously resonated with the crowd, who roared their approval, particularly when he took shots at the Republicans, denounced the war and called for making college more affordable.

"I don't want to just end the war. I want to end the mindset that got us into the war," Obama said. "I will bring this war to an end in 2009."

After the rally, Amanda Tirey of Farmersville said she was impressed.

"I literally got chills up my spine, to hear someone articulate the same things I'm concerned about," she said.

"The man is fantastic, there is a movement this country has never seen before," said Guy Jones of Dayton.

Kenneth Coleman, 39, of Dayton said he's a Republican but plans to vote for Obama.

"He's young and full of energy," Coleman said.

During his speech, Obama said it is time that America begins to lead the world community, including helping countries battle HIV/AIDS, negotiating a new nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bringing an end to genocide in Sudan.

"We will also lead by having the highest standards of civil rights and civil liberties and rule of law," said Obama, pledging to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, "restore habeas corpus (and) bring an end to torture."

He also called for changes in trade agreements to make them more fair to American workers and to force other countries to follow consumer safety rules.

He said he supports a law that would raise the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation.

"If you work in this country, you should not be poor," Obama said.

He said if government can find the money to wage war in Iraq, it can find it to invest in American infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals.

He defended his frequent use of the word "hope." Obama said Clinton and others call him "naive" and imply that he is a "hope monger," a remark that drew laughs from the crowd.

But, said Obama, nothing worthwhile ever happened except somebody was willing to hope for it.

"Hope is imagining, then fighting for, working for and struggling for what did not seem possible," he said.

Earlier Monday, Obama held a roundtable on retirement issues at the Cincinnati Museum, and appeared before 13,000 supporters at a rally at the University of Cincinnati's Fifth Third Arena. He didn't come away empty handed: Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory, one of the previously uncommitted superdelegates, announced he was endorsing the Illinois senator.

At the roundtable, Obama talked for nearly an hour with five women who have faced financial and health care hardships that have put their retirement in jeopardy.

"We never thought we would be in this position at this age in our lives," said panelist Martha Tepe. "Oh, my God, what comes next? It's a very unnerving, frightening position."

Obama said he wants the richest Americans to start paying more into Social Security as a way to shore it up for lower income workers. Workers now pay Social Security taxes on the first $97,000 in income, which means multi-billionaire Warren Buffet pays into Social Security only a fraction of his income, Obama said. He proposed raising the floor on Social Security payroll taxes.

"It's harder to save and harder to retire. Pensions are getting crunched," Obama said.

"That's why my agenda for retirement security will protect Social Security, lift up savings for working people, and reform bankruptcy laws to protect working people."

He proposed creating automatic workplace pensions, expanding retirement savings incentives, eliminating income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000, and requiring disclosure of company pension investments.

In Fairborn and Cincinnati Obama asked people to vote early.

"You don't want to leave it to the last second," he said. "In Chicago, we vote early and often. I don't want you to do that. I want you to vote early."

Staff writers Ryan Fox and Joe Giessler contributed to this report.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7455 or lhulsey@DaytonDailyNews.com.