DAYTON — Barack Obama's campaign chose a small hion gh school gym for his speech in Dayton Friday, July 11, and the cozy surroundings helped amplify the energy of the 1,300 supporters who packed the room.

Peggy Perreira and Brenda Allen, friends from Oxford, drove up for the event because they are big Obama fans. At the end of the speech, Perreira ran to the side of the stage to meet Obama close up.

"I asked him for a hug and he gave me a kiss!" she said.

Allen said she liked Obama's message.

"He is trying to unite everyone," she said. "That's exactly where we are as a country. We need unity."

Local Democrats gave the candidate high marks for his speech on energy.

City Commissioner Nan Whaley said she went to a town hall in Dayton when Al Gore was running for president in 2000 in which Gore talked about creating jobs through environmental policy.

"What a difference eight years make," she said.

Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin said it was exciting to hear Obama talk about the U.S. strongly supporting green energy.

"He really established a path for us to become leaders in energy in the world," she said.

Montgomery County Commissioner Debbie Lieberman said some of the initiatives Obama pushed in the speech — high- speed rail between cities and creating jobs locally through alternative energy — have been discussed locally for years. Obama pledged $15 billion a year to invest in new sources of energy.

"These are things we have been talking about and pushing for," she said. "We have the work force and we are ready to go. And $15 billion a year would be an incredible start."

During his speech, Obama talked about building high-speed rails connecting a series of Midwestern cities, including Dayton, from Chicago to Detroit to Pittsburgh to Indianapolis.

That pleased Tom Roberts, a state senator from Dayton.

"High-speed rail has been talked about here for years," Roberts said of a proposal to link Dayton to Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati by rail.

Because of Ohio's strong connection to the auto industry, Roberts sees opportunities for the state to be a leader in building the cars of the future.

"We need to look at the kinds of cars we are building and use what we have in Ohio to build the kinds of cars that will be fuel efficient," he said.

Sylvia Logan of Dayton and her niece, Madison King, were most impressed by a long response Obama gave to a question about improving the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Logan said she liked Obama's plan for supporting more preschool programs and making college more affordable. Madison, a student at Precious Blood Catholic School said preschool could help kids come to school better prepared.

"Too many kids have a hard time reading," she said. "It's important for them to be able to read and have a good education."