DAYTON — Dayton and other parts of the Midwest should be the hub of new green energy jobs, given its location and skilled work force, Democrat Barack Obama told the Dayton Daily News on Friday, July 11.

"One of the benefits of being in the Midwest is that we should be at the center of the action," Obama said in a brief interview following his town hall meeting at Stivers School for the Arts.

When asked what he would do as president to bring jobs back to Dayton, Obama said, "Dayton and other portions of the Midwest that have been hard-hit by the loss of manufacturing should be some of the centers for building this new green economy that has to be one of our priorities moving forward. It's critical that we develop a car that's getting much higher mileage. It's critical that we are developing biofuels that can help drive our economy and loosen our dependence on foreign oil. And Ohio and cities like Dayton have the skilled workforce, the experience in manufacturing, the research facilities that allow them to be centerpieces for the major investment — $15 billion a year, as I talked about. I also think that Dayton has a distribution hub historically and can benefit from infrastructure improvements of the sort that I've called for."

With the high gas prices and slumping economy, General Motors announced last month that it is closing its sport utility vehicle assembly plant and eliminating 2,500 jobs. Aiming for the long-term goal of energy independence does not have to mean sacrifice and pain in the near term for auto towns like Dayton, Obama said.

"The problem is, had we said to the automakers 20, 25 years ago, 'We are going to work with you to make more fuel efficient cars but that's the direction we have to go,' car makers would have adapted. But they were resistant and we didn't have the political will to do it," Obama said. "And so, instead of that SUV plant, we could have had a Prius plant or the U.S. equivalent of a Prius plant, a hybrid plant. We can't double back on that lack of foresight but at least moving forward we can make sure that we are planning for the future so that 20 years from now, people are looking back and saying Dayton has been a city that sees the future and America is a country that sees the future."