Surrogates for Obama, Clinton visit Valley

YOUNGSTOWN — President Kennedy’s daughter, the governor and a ex-U.S. House majority leader made local campaign stops to drum up support for the candidates in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary.

Caroline Kennedy spoke Friday to a crowd of about 250 at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown on behalf of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois.

“I never had a candidate who inspires me as much as people tell me that my father inspired them,” said Kennedy, who made a very similar comment Thursday in Toledo, according to The Blade newspaper.

Gov. Ted Strickland and former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt made two local appearances Friday for U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York.

At Clinton local campaign office in the Mahoning Plaza in Youngstown, Strickland said electing Clinton would give him and all Ohioans a “partner” in the White House.

“We need a partner in the presidency,” he said during a campaign swing through eastern Ohio with Gephardt, a former two-time presidential candidate. “I need to have someone in Washington I can call.”

The two also spoke at an AFSCME office in Austintown.

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