Democrats' Confidence Evident With Indiana Rally

The Democratic presidential campaign yesterday deployed its reserve weapon, Michelle Obama, sending her to traditionally Republican Indiana to tell voters they were faced with a clear choice on November 4.

Speaking in the struggling industrial town of Fort Wayne, she said there was only one candidate who had a plan for universal healthcare, to ensure children could go to college and who had a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq.

"The choice is clear in this election. There's only one candidate who is talking about the issues that matter most to American families," she said.

Her appearance was a sign of the campaign's confidence. The last time Indiana's 11 electoral votes went to the Democrats in a presidential election was in 1964.

Local polls show John McCain leads by five to seven points, but the margins have been closing. But she gave no indication of complacency. "We are taking nothing for granted. Barack Obama will be the underdog until he is sitting in the White House."

About 1,000 people assembled at Fort Wayne's central conference center - a marked increase on the crowd that came to hear her here during the primaries.

Katia Wilson, a resident, said she had come to witness history in the making. As a black woman, she said Michelle Obama's address to the Democratic convention moved her. "She motivated and inspired me and I've come to hear her story."

Obama delivered a speech that stressed her husband's empathy with the plight of working families. "Barack Obama gets it," she said, referring to the daily struggle.

There was no mention by name of either McCain or his running mate, Sarah Palin. But Michelle Obama implicitly criticized the recent negative tone of their campaign by saying of her husband: "He's done it all with a level of grace and poise and respect and dignity."