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President-elect Barack Obama, tracing the
train route Abraham Lincoln took nearly a century and a half
earlier, undertook the final leg of his inaugural journey to the
nation's capital Saturday, pledging to reclaim America's spirit but
also warning of steep challenges facing the country.


      "Starting now, let's take up in our own lives the work of
perfecting our union," he told several hundred people gathered
inside a hall at Philadelphia's historic 30th Street train station.
"Let's build a government that is responsible to the people and
accept our own responsibilities as citizens to hold our government
accountable. ... Let's make sure this election is not the end of
what we do to change America, but the beginning and the hope for
the future."


      While talking about the future, Obama reflected on the past,
echoing the words of the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln and
President John F. Kennedy. He cited the founding fathers who risked
everything with no assurance of success in Philadelphia in the
summer of 1776:

      It's a momentous time for the Obamas. And for Michelle Obama, it
was also her 45th birthday.


      The president-elect's triumphant day - to be heralded by
cheering throngs along the 137-mile rail route - was starting in
Philadelphia with a sober discussion of the country's future with
41 people he met during his long quest for the White House.


      At the outset, he told a crowd gathered in a flag-draped room
that the same perseverance and idealism displayed by the nation's
founders are needed to tackle the difficulties of today.


      "We recognize that such enormous challenges will not be solved
quickly," Obama said. "There will be false starts and setbacks,
frustrations and disappointments. And we will be called to show
patience even as we act with fierce urgency."


      He cited the faltering economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
- "one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be
waged wisely" - the threat of global warming and U.S. dependence
on foreign oil.


      "We are here today not simply to pay tribute to our first
patriots but to take up the work that they began," he said. "The
trials we face are very different now, but severe in their own
right. Only a handful of times in our history has a generation been
confronted with challenges so vast."


      Preparing to board the train, Obama said that "what's required
is a new declaration of independence - from ideology and small
thinking."


      Obama was traveling from Philadelphia to Wilmington, Del., where
he was picking up Vice President-elect Joe Biden, and then
Baltimore before arriving at Washington's Union Station after
nightfall.

      The train was also to make "slow rolls" through the towns of
Claymont, Del., and Edgewood, Md., so more people could see Obama
waving from the back balcony of the rail car. Curious onlookers
also were expected to gather on overpasses, parking lots and
commuter train stations hoping to get a glimpse of the
president-elect.


      Obama was to deliver a speech before as many as 100,000 at
Baltimore's War Memorial Plaza. Pressing the inaugural theme of
service and community, event planners also called for canned food
drives in Wilmington and Baltimore to coincide with his stops.


      Temperatures were in the single digits in Philadelphia, but the
energy in the room warmed the crowd.


      "Hello Philadelphia!" Obama shouted to cheers.


      Although his path tracked Lincoln's and took on the same
overtone of high security, it wasn't the journey of virtual secrecy
that the 16th president-elect took so long ago on the eve of the
Civil War. Lincoln was smuggled under cover of darkness from one
train station to another to avoid a feared assassination attempt.

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Politics and Government News

President-elect Barack Obama, tracing the
train route Abraham Lincoln took nearly a century and a half
earlier, undertook the final leg of his inaugural journey to the
nation's capital Saturday, pledging to reclaim America's spirit but
also warning of steep challenges facing the country.


Obama cites founding fathers, heading for capital

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