Obama Calls for National Service

An American Opportunity Tax Credit would offer $4,000 to college students for 100 hours of public service. A planned expansion of the Army and Marines by 92,000 would be fostered with pay raises, more family-friendly policies and an end to recruiting impediments such as "stop-loss" decrees that prevent service members from leaving on schedule.

A component Obama added Wednesday would allow veterans to use expanded education benefits under the newly passed GI Bill to seek training for jobs working with renewable energy.

Obama stressed his own experience working after college as a community organizer for $12,000 a year, as well as the role that his wife, Michelle, has played with AmeriCorps in Chicago.

"Through service, I found a community that embraced me, citizenship that was meaningful, the direction I'd been seeking," he said.

Republicans here savaged Obama in a conference call, raising his past support for gun control and his private fundraiser Wednesday night at the ritzy Broadmoor hotel, which they say is closed to avoid questions about retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark. Last weekend, Clark said Republican Sen. John McCain's war record is not a qualification for the presidency.

Obama has "chosen to have private meetings because he knows the backlash he would experience here because of the actions of his surrogates," said state Rep. Bob Gardner (R-Colorado Springs).

North Dakota, where Obama will be campaigning Thursday, gave Bush 63 percent in 2004. Fargo's Cass County was only slightly closer, with a split of 59 percent to 39 percent. Montana was similarly deep red in 2004, although Silver Bow County, where Obama will be campaigning, is a Democratic labor-union stronghold. Kerry won 57 percent of the vote there.

But Salazar said Obama is wise to take on the values issue. "I think it's a mistake for Democrats to run away from that values-based discussion," he said.

The Obama campaign believes that the candidate has found a way to meld his calls for a more active government with an appeal to military-oriented voters and his own efforts to dispel stubborn notions that he lacks patriotism.

"There is a lesson to be learned from generations who have served: from soldiers and sailors, airmen and Marines, suffragists and freedom riders, teachers and doctors, cops and firefighters," he said. "It's the lesson that in America, each of us is free to seek our own dreams, but we must also serve a common purpose, a higher purpose."