Posted: Saturday, May 10, 2008 12:00 am
Just after Barack Obama's campaign stop in Albany Friday, Gazette-Times reporter Matt Neznanski had five minutes to ask questions one-on-one of the candidate. Here is a transcription of that conversation.
Gazette-Times: You talked today about renewable energy. Oregon and Western states use hydroelectric power a lot. It's clean, it's renewable, but we see that there are problems that come with it in the collapse of our fishing industry off the coast. How do we strike a balance for our need for energy and the environment, and what can the executive branch do help guide us?
Obama: Well, obviously, hydro generation is critically important to the Pacific Northwest and is a clean energy. There are serious concerns in terms of the salmon runs and its effect on fisheries and my over-riding principle is to be governed by science and sustainability.
I think that we can't ignore the need for power and the alternatives can be dirtier and more damaging for the environment and the question then becomes: How do we structure our hydroelectric systems that our salmon stocks are sustained in the future?
I can't dictate ahead of time what the best approach for that is, but as the head of the executive branch, what I can be is an honest broker and help state and local governments find that right balance.
Gazette-Times: Senator Clinton was in Portland this morning talking about health care. Difference in plans aside, what's the likelihood that health care is something that we can tackle and work to solve in the next term and how do we get there?
Obama: I think that Senator Clinton and I both have good plans. Our goals are similar: universal health care for all Americans.
What is most important is that we have a process that is transparent and that draws in all parties concerned: doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, employers, labor, Democrats, Republicans.
The drug and insurance companies should have a seat at the table; they just shouldn't be able to buy every chair.
Most importantly, I want the American people involved in it, so the negotiations, I think, should be out in the open, should be televised on C-Span, we should have a debate about many of the arguments against universal health care that are presented by those industries that are profiting from the status quo and then members of Congress should be held accountable.
That's the only way that you avoid the dominance of special interests in shaping policy, and that's unfortunately has been what's happened for many, many years now.
Gazette-Times: You grew up living in different countries and different regions of the United States. What do you bring from that experience that might shape how you approach domestic and foreign policy?
Obama: You know, when it comes to having lived across the United States, I think you really appreciate how much we have in common, and that's true from living overseas as well.
There's nothing like living overseas to really make you value America and how special it is compared to other countries, basic things we take for granted: rule of law, the respect for the individual, the dynamism and entrepreneurial nature of our economy, our confidence in being able to speak our minds and our protections that our Constitution provides.
And so, as I think about this race, I want to make sure we're passing on those American ideals to the next generation and some of them have been, not irrevocably damaged, but damaged nonetheless. This administration's attitude toward civil liberties for example, I think, has not been true to our Constitutional ideas.
I want to make sure that, most importantly, the idea of upward mobility and opportunity, continues for the future.
So many people feel their economic status slipping because of jobs moving overseas, rising gas prices, wages and incomes down, their pensions being abandoned by companies and if we can get the American people to recognize that everybody has a stake in those basic core values of workers and work, then I think we'll succeed in the future.
- Matt Neznanski