OBAMA: What it—what I think it did for me was to give me a perspective that maybe is broader on some of the misunderstandings that people go through, but also an appreciation of everybody’s cultures.

It is not just the fact that I have a black dad and a white mom. It’s, I have got a sister who is half Indonesian, who is married to a Chinese Canadian.

(LAUGHTER)

OBAMA: I have got a niece who looks like, you know, she’s all mixed up.

(LAUGHTER)

OBAMA: And, you know, so when you get our family together—I have said this before. I wrote a book. I have got family members that look like Margaret Thatcher. I have got family members that look like Bernie Mac.

(LAUGHTER)

OBAMA: You know? And, so what it does—what it means is, I—

I’m not going to engage in stereotypes about people, because you never know where people are coming from.

And I really have learned to believe that everybody has common values and common ideals. And, especially here in America, everybody wants the same thing. They want a good job. They want to take care of their families. They want health care they can afford. They want to be able to send their kids to college, retire with dignity and respect.

MATTHEWS: When you—and everybody wants to know this stuff.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

MATTHEWS: See, the people here, the young people here, who are black don’t know what it is like to be white, and the white people don’t know what it is like to be black. And you have a better look at that than anybody.

OBAMA: Well, I think that, as I said before, people have a lot more in common than I think we give them credit for.

The—part of the problem is, our politics fans division. It feeds on it. It is not that it is not there already. But, a lot of times, it is a convenient way to stir things up. And one of the things that we have tried to do in this campaign—and I think young people are tapped into this—is to say, look, people of different races occupy different situations and have a different history.

And we have got to address some of that different history.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

OBAMA: But people’s aspirations, their capacity for good and for bad, it really is the same.

And we’re at our best when we join together. We’re at our best when we’re unified. We’re at our worst when we’re divided and when our politics is based along tribal and ethnic lines...

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: ... instead of based on who we are as Americans.

(APPLAUSE)

MATTHEWS: You know...

(APPLAUSE)

MATTHEWS: You know that term in politics called the dog whistle, where you say something and certain people hear it, and they can’t get caught using it, but they know what they’re doing?

Do you think the Clinton campaign is using a dog whistle by constantly talking about your former pastor?

OBAMA: No. I—look, I think that—I think that...

MATTHEWS: Are they playing that ethnic card?

OBAMA: No. Look, I think that’s fair game, in the sense that what my former pastor said was offensive. And I think that, in politics, whether I was white, black, Hispanic, Asian, somebody would be trying to use it against me.

And, you know, I do think that it is important to keep things in perspective, and to remind ourselves that, over the last two weeks, we have marked the fifth anniversary of a war that has now lasted longer than World War I, World War II, and the Civil War.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

OBAMA: I think it is important for us to remind ourselves 4,000 Americans have died, more than 4,000 Americans, that families are now suffering three, four tours of duty, putting enormous strain on military families, the people that are losing their homes. So, you know, my—the one thing I think about our politics that weneed to fix, aside from pushing the special interests that have come todominate Washington out, and let the American people back in, is alsonot to be distracted and to...

The one thing I think about our politics that we need to fix, aside from pushing the special interests that have come to dominate Washington out, and let the American people back in, is also not to be distracted, and to make sure we’re focusing on the big things that are going to make a difference in these young people’s lives 20 years from now, 30 years from now, 40 years from now, instead of what was the latest gaff or what did this surrogate say or that surrogate say, which really—three weeks from now, everybody will have forgotten. But we won’t have forgotten the fact that global warming is still a big issue and a war is still going on and our economy is starting to slip.
Video
Obama gets personal
April: 2: Sen. Barack Obama answers questions about his background, race in the race, how he quit smoking, and what he learned about America through his campaign.
Hardball

MATTHEWS: That said, when you hear divisive language, whether from your preacher or from anyone else, why didn’t you walk out of that church? When you heard that, what you called controversial language, why didn’t you go back and give him 27,000 dollars in contributions to your church. Why did you just say, he’s on a different side of this fight than I am?

OBAMA: I think that what has happened is we took a loop out of— and compressed the most offensive things that a pastor said over the course of thirty years, and just ran it over and over and over again. There is that other 30 years. I never heard him say those things that were in those clips.

MATTHEWS: But you did say you heard him say controversial things.

OBAMA: But I’ve heard you say controversial things.

MATTHEWS: You didn’t give me 27,000 dollars either.

OBAMA: The point is this is a church that is active in AIDS. It’s active on all kind of thing. And so this is a wonderful church. But as I said, look at the amount of time that’s been spent on this today, Chris. At a time when we haven’t talked about a whole host of issues.

MATTHEWS: You know the Republicans will bring it back.

OBAMA: Of course it will come back. Of course the Republicans will bring it back. The question is, what is actually going to make a difference in the lives of people who right now are on the verge of losing their home? What is going to make a difference in their lives?

MATTHEWS: When did you have your last cigarette?

OBAMA: You know—

MATTHEWS: Was that the last time you cried? What was that like?

Because that shows—Bush the president gave up booze. I always thought that was an impressive thing about him. I gave it up. I know how hard it is. You just give it up cold turkey. What was it like to you and what advice can you give these kids?

OBAMA: Don’t start.

MATTHEWS: Don’t start. What does it take, besides a lot of people watching you, in your case—

OBAMA: Having your wife say on “60 Minutes” that if you see Barack with a cigarette, let me know. That—

MATTHEWS: No cheating.

OBAMA: Well, you know—

MATTHEWS: No cheating.

OBAMA: I fell off the wagon a couple times during the course of it, and then was able to get back on. But it is a struggle like everything else. And I think that it is important to just keep in mind, I have a nine-year-old daughter and a six-year-old daughter. And I want to give them away in their weddings and I want to see my grand kids, and I want to set a good example for all these young people here, and I want to make sure as president of the United States, everybody knows that I’m going to try to stay healthy. I need you guys to stay healthy, too, because we need to bring our health care costs down.

MATTHEWS: How many smokers are there here right now? Smokers stand up. Smokers stand up. Come on. Be honest. Come on! Smokers.

OBAMA: All right, guys.

MATTHEWS: Talk to these people.

OBAMA: You need to get it straight. You guys need get on the case.

MATTHEWS: I applaud this school, a very low smoking school. Or else a very dishonest school. Let me ask you, any time in this campaign, did you have a chuckle that you just couldn’t get rid of? Something weird that happened; it was so crazy that you just went to bed laughing about it.

OBAMA: I think that happens once a day. But then I stopped watching cable news.

MATTHEWS: Oh.

I got another set of cards in the back room. No, let me ask you about the campaign. Do you think that you’ve learned—I know you’ve done a lot of this. This is amazing to meet so many young people of different backgrounds, to see these smiling faces.

It must be the most wonderful experience for you. But what can you say, if you had to write another book after this campaign and said, what did I profoundly learn about this country of mine that I really, really didn’t know before this thing started. Can you come up with it? Did you learn anything or has it between fast?

OBAMA: Well, it has been more confirmation of what I had hoped. When I got into the race, I hoped that people were ready for a different kind of politics. I hoped that young people who had been sitting on the sidelines decided, now is the time for us to get involved. I’ll be honest with you; I didn’t expect such an enormous wave. We’ve seen record turnouts, record participation.

You had in Iowa—young people participated in the same rates as people over 60. That’s unheard of in the annals of American politics. So that’s been extremely encouraging. How interested people are in what their government is doing right now. And I think that when that happens, good thing happen.

Our problems always occur when nobody is paying attention and the fat cats and the lobbyists end up setting the agenda in Washington. And when the American people are paying attention, they hold the government accountable and it makes an enormous difference. We actually start solving problems. That’s what I think we can do starting next year.

MATTHEWS: Thank you. We’ll be right back with more of Senator Barack Obama from West Chester University in Philadelphia.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CONTINUED

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