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Obama touts Youngstown in speech
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Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams
‘The battle for America’s future will be fought and won in places’ such as Youngstown, the president said.
YOUNGSTOWN — The recovery and prosperity of the national economy depends on what happens in cities such as Youngstown, President Barack Obama said in a speech in Indiana.
“The battle for America’s future will be fought and won in places like Elkhart and Detroit, Goshen and Pittsburgh, South Bend, Youngstown — in cities and towns across Indiana and across the Midwest and across the country that have been the backbone of America,” Obama said Wednesday in a speech in Wakarusa, an Indiana city in Elkhart County, about the national economy.
“It will be won by making places like Elkhart what they once were and can be again — and that’s centers of innovation and entrepreneurship and ingenuity and opportunity; the bustling, whirring, humming engines of American prosperity,” Obama added.
When contacted by The Vindicator to comment on the president’s mention of Youngstown, Mayor Jay Williams, who endorsed the fellow Democrat in last year’s election, said he was pleased with Obama’s comments. Williams also said he looks forward to Obama’s “making a similar speech from Youngstown.”
Obama last campaigned in the Mahoning Valley on Aug. 5, 2008, when he spoke to about 2,000 people at a rally at Austintown Fitch High School. Neither Obama nor any member of his Cabinet has spoken in the Mahoning Valley since the president’s election, even though they’ve visited dozens of other cities primarily to tout the $787 billion federal economic stimulus package.
Wednesday was the second time Obama visited Wakarusa this year. His first visit was in February.
Nevertheless, Williams said: “It is becoming clear that the Obama administration is recognizing the importance of America’s older industrial cities as extremely relevant to the success of this country. We should be proud that Youngstown, Ohio, is being acknowledged as an innovative leader. We will continue working with the president and his administration to advance this agenda.”
In Indiana, Obama spoke to an invitation-only crowd at a Monaco RV plant that was purchased in June by Navistar International Corp. after its previous owner went bankrupt.
He offered a glimmer of hope: auto-dependent Indiana and Michigan were getting the largest shares of $2.4 billion in grants to build up electric-car manufacturing.
skolnick@vindy.com