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Obama Gives General Election Speech, Doesn’t Mention Delegates, Boycott

Posted May 21, 2008 by William March

Updated May 21, 2008 at 02:59 PM

Barack Obama gave a standard stump speech in Tampa today—that is, a standard stump speech for the general election against John McCain.

He blasted McCain, and mentioned his primary opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, only to praise her.

The speech contained all the standard themes Obama has campaigned on—his long-standing opposition to the Iraq war, his attacks on the influence of lobbyists, the need for health care reform—but nothing that seemed aimed especially at Florida, except for a reference to mass transit in Tampa.

That apparently came from conversations just before his speech with Mayor Pam Iorio, who endorsed him today during the rally.

Of Clinton, Obama said she “has run an outstanding campaign, she has set the standard,” he said. He said her candidacy “will open up opportunity for a lot of people including my two two young daughters.”

He then pivoted to John McCain, saying McCain “is running for four more years of George Bush, he’s running for a third Bush term.”

Obama said he admires McCain “because he is a genuine American war hero,” but then continued to criticize him by linking McCain to the Bush record.

What Obama never mentioned in his stump speech was either the controversial issue of the Florida national convention delegates, banned because of the state’s too-early primary, or his own boycott of Florida during the primary campaign.

“All I did was play exactly by the rules that were laid out for me,” he said in an interview afterward.