Senator Obama delivered the following remarks in Berlin, Germany…

Thank you to the citizens of Berlin and to the people of Germany. Let me thank Chancellor Merkel and Foreign Minister Steinmeier for welcoming me earlier today. Thank you Mayor Wowereit, the Berlin Senate, the police, and most of all thank you for this welcome.

I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before.  Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen – a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world. 

I know that I don’t look like the Americans who’ve previously spoken in this great city. The journey that led me here is improbable. My mother was born in the heartland of America, but my father grew up herding goats in Kenya. His father – my grandfather – was a cook, a domestic servant to the British. 

At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning – his dream – required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West. And so he wrote letter after letter to universities all across America until somebody, somewhere answered his prayer for a better life.

That is why I’m here. And you are here because you too know that yearning. This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom. And you know that the only reason we stand here tonight is because men and women from both of our nations came together to work, and struggle, and sacrifice for that better life.

Ours is a partnership that truly began sixty years ago this summer, on the day when the first American plane touched down at Templehof.

Continue reading for the full remarks (as prepared for delivery)…

Coretta is an Organizing Fellow in Georgia.  Her stories appear each Thursday.

At times I have a hard time believing how heavily involved in the campaign I’ve become. Politics, I used to think, was not for me. But having been present when hope takes hold in the hearts of supporters has forever changed my mind. This campaign moves me to strike up conversations and before I realize it, I am a few sentences into why I support Barack Obama. Under normal circumstances, people are pleasant but some of my best experiences are when I was able to uncover our common denominator, and then, voilà, a new volunteer signs up and is ready to be plugged in!

I have been amazed at how attentive and open people are, especially once they find out I am an Obama Organizing Fellow. When I meet someone who thinks differently, I try to understand their position, so I ask a probing questions like “What is it that concerns you about Senator Obama?” and “Have you visited BarackObama.com to get the facts?” While these types of questions have mixed responses, they tend to help create some elbowroom for the Senator. As much as I do not like to spend too much time debating partisan issues, I know that times like these give me a chance to recruit some new people for the Campaign for Change.

This brings to mind how an unplanned stop turned into an ongoing voter registration drive. After setting up two hair salons in Adamsville as new voter registration locations, we stopped by one of the oldest bookstores in America, The Shrine of the Black Maddona Bookstore & Cultural Center. We were welcomed to use a portion of their bookstore to set up for voter registration. Early Saturday morning we took them up on their offer and set up a voter registration event, and we plan to return each Saturday to build a stronger following.

Later that evening we went to a Neighborhood Planning Unit (NPU), which is a citizen advisory council held at the Community Baptist Church of God. I was able to give an overview of what I am doing as an Obama Organizing Fellow, and highlighted the focus on voter registration and the recruitment of volunteers. We gave voter registration forms and added more names to our contact list. The day ended around 10pm for us, but we accomplished a great deal.

I cannot believe there are less than four days left until my Organizing Fellowship ends. Where did the time go? These last six weeks have shown me that politics requires a passionate spirit and good character: neither one alone will get the job done. With less than 102 days until the General Election I’ve started my election countdown, to keep me focused on working to ensure that Senator Obama is our next President.

Check back next week for more from Coretta in Georgia, and visit our Flickr page for more of her photos.

Click here to find a platform meeting near you and help contribute to a party platform that embodies your values and vision for the future. Have you already been to or hosted a platform meeting? Send your photos and a few words on how it went to blog@barackobama.com, and we’ll feature the best photos and stories right here on the HQ blog.

Click here for the full text of the speech and click here to learn more about Senator Obama’s foreign policy plan.

To view:
http://www.justin.tv/ronpaul2008

In the past we have had technical troubles with our live video broadcasts, but we will do everything we can to make sure you have the opportunity to view it live. The rally will also be professionally recorded and uploaded to the Internet for all to see in the next day or two.

Thank you for your continued support.

For liberty,
The Ron Paul 2008 Team

For 17 months we brought the message of peace, freedom, and prosperity to millions of Americans. The response overwhelmed me: more Americans believe in liberty and the Constitution than I ever imagined. I am deeply moved and honored by your hard work and sacrifice on behalf of our cause.

However, after much serious thought, I have decided to end my campaign for the Presidency of the United States. It is time now to take the energy this campaign has awakened and channel it into long-term efforts to take back our country. We have some exciting plans and projects to move the revolution forward that will come together in the next several months. Watch for them.

I will work until my last breath on behalf of this great message. That I promise you. We don???t have to live in the kind of America the two major parties have in store for us.  Together, let us continue to lay the foundations for an America worthy of our Founding Fathers.

Ron Paul

For 17 months we brought the message of peace, freedom, and prosperity to millions of Americans. The response overwhelmed me: more Americans believe in liberty and the Constitution than I ever imagined. I am deeply moved and honored by your hard work and sacrifice on behalf of our cause.

However, after much serious thought, I have decided to end my campaign for the Presidency of the United States. It is time now to take the energy this campaign has awakened and channel it into long-term efforts to take back our country. We have some exciting plans and projects to move the revolution forward that will come together in the next several months. Watch for them.

I will work until my last breath on behalf of this great message. That I promise you. We don’t have to live in the kind of America the two major parties have in store for us.  Together, let us continue to lay the foundations for an America worthy of our Founding Fathers.

Ron Paul

To view:
http://www.justin.tv/ronpaul2008

In the past we have had technical troubles with our live video broadcasts, but we will do everything we can to make sure you have the opportunity to view it live. The rally will also be professionally recorded and uploaded to the Internet for all to see in the next day or two.

Thank you for your continued support.

For liberty,
The Ron Paul 2008 Team

From McClatchy:

Barack Obama arrived in Germany Thursday morning to much fanfare, as local television stations aired live coverage and fans gathered in the streets for a glimpse at the U.S. Democratic presidential candidate who will be delivering a much anticipated speech here later today.

Senator Obama’s speech from Berlin, Germany is being carried live right now on CNN, and you can watch a live stream of the event below:

Stay tuned for coverage of Senator Obama’s speech in Tiergarten Park later today!

From McClatchy:

Barack Obama arrived in Germany Thursday morning to much fanfare, as local television stations aired live coverage and fans gathered in the streets for a glimpse at the U.S. Democratic presidential candidate who will be delivering a much anticipated speech here later today.

Senator Obama’s speech from Berlin, Germany is being carried live right now on CNN, and you can watch a live stream of the event below:

Stay tuned for coverage of Senator Obama’s speech in Tiergarten Park later today!

Sen. Barack Obama stepped gingerly through the intractable politics of the Middle East on Wednesday, offering resolute support for Israel’s security, warning that Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would be a "game-changing" event for the world, and pledging to make peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians one of his highest priorities if he becomes president.

By motorcade and helicopter, in private meetings and public appearances, the Democratic candidate moved from the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah to the southern Israeli town of Sderot just outside the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Palestinian gunmen in Gaza have long fired makeshift rockets at Sderot, typically after Israeli military operations in the strip or the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Obama used Sderot’s police station and a backdrop of racks of spent Qassam rockets to declare his "unshakable commitment to Israel’s security." He added: "The state of Israel faces determined enemies who seek its destruction. But it also has a friend and ally in the United States that will always stand by the people of Israel."

Obama’s busy day in Israel, followed by a pre-dawn visit Thursday to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, concluded the Middle East and Asia part of his trip overseas. After four days in Afghanistan and Iraq, a day in Jordan and another in Israel, the presumptive Democratic nominee will turn his focus to Europe. He was to fly to Berlin on Thursday morning and hold the biggest public event of his tour at Tiergarten Park in the evening. A huge crowd is expected.

From the Gainesville Sun:

Democratic Party activists won’t have to look far to find Barack Obama’s Gainesville campaign office.

The presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee’s office is located at 901 NW 8th Ave., next to Alachua County Democratic Party headquarters. A grand opening of the office is being held at 5 p.m. today and is open to the public.

The campaign opened a state campaign headquarters last week in Ybor City. The campaign is opening satellite offices in small towns and rural areas where Democratic candidates might not have focused in the past, said Obama campaign spokeswoman Adrianne Marsh.

"This is really about a new kind of campaign politics," she said. "This is about campaigning and talking to voters everywhere."

From the Grand Junction Free Press:

Volunteers for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama opened a new office for Obama’s campaign Tuesday evening at 844 Grand Ave.

Campaign organizers invited the five dozen people gathered at the opening to volunteer at the office, which will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week. Dolores Pitman signed a long sheet of paper for volunteers posted on the office wall next to a sign counting down the days to the election — 104 on Tuesday night.

“From the first time I heard Obama speak I was impressed,” Pitman said. “I got involved in January and helped with the caucus. I was a precinct captain and a volunteer coordinator.”

Pitman said she isn’t sure what jobs she wants to add to that list. The office could use people to make phone calls, go door-to-door and drive people to voting centers on election day, among other tasks.

Volunteer Jeff Smith has already started calling and canvassing. His goal is to persuade unaffiliated voters to vote for Obama. A recent count shows Colorado has 3,000 more unaffiliated voters than Republicans…

The Obama office is one of three offices in Grand Junction for Democrats or Democratic candidates. Forward Colorado has an office next the Dairy Queen on North Ave. and will focus more on candidates from Colorado. Mesa County Democrats offices are at 251 Colorado Ave., which served as Obama headquarters during Colorado’s Feb. 5 caucuses.

From the Jackson Free Press:

Barack Obama can win Mississippi for the Democratic Party. A laughable statement in political circles as recently as last year, this was the message Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean delivered during a Friday, July 18, address at Tougaloo College with a seriousness and fervor reminiscent of his 2004 presidential campaign.

“The South has a changed a lot in the past 40 years,” he told the crowd of nearly 200 at the Kroger Gymnasium. “What we want people to know is that not only has the South changed, but the Democratic Party has changed.”

Dean, whose visit was part of a bus tour across the South, outlined a decentralized voter registration campaign calling for participants to knock on 25 of their neighbors’ doors three times for the presumptive Democratic nominee, and then convince two people to do the same.

The campaign, which Dean said stresses a stronger commitment to local leaders rather than to outsiders from Washington, reflects the grassroots commitment to community organizing that has defined the Obama campaign throughout the past year and a half.

“It ain’t going to happen unless you do it,” he said, pointing at the crowd…

Aaron Gardner, Mississippi field director for the Obama campaign, said he believes the Democratic Party will have the resources to win in Mississippi in November.

From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Democrat Barack Obama unveiled a new radio advertisement Wednesday that targets Hispanic voters with his story of a child raised by a single mother who grows up to become a Chicago community activist and political leader.

"He achieved his success with a good education, but he also had to rely on student loans, which a lot of Hispanic families can identify with," said Freddy Balsera, an Obama campaign spokesman in Miami.

Titled "Nuestro Propio Camino" ("Our own road"), the ad emphasizes educational aid, reducing welfare rolls through job growth and changing the country’s immigration system.

"He grew up without a father — raised by his mother with the support of his grandparents," the ad says. "Obama never forgot his roots. … He worked with churches to help families get job training and after-school care for their children. In the state Senate, he passed a law that helped reduce the welfare rolls by over 80 percent by helping families to secure jobs."

Listening to America Platform Meetings are going on now through Sunday night, all across the country. These meetings are a unique chance for regular Americans to add their input to the 2008 Democratic Party Platform. Christine from Winnetka, IL attended a Platform Meeting earlier today, and wrote about it on her blog on My.BarackObama.com:

This morning I participated in a Platform Meeting at the home of a friend in my hometown. My head is swimming, we discussed so many important issues — not a single distraction, just policy. I strongly encourage everyone to find a meeting near you and participate. What a tremendous opportunity to express our views and concerns to the campaign and Democratic party, this is…

Our meeting took just over an hour, but could have gone on much longer if some of us did not have to pick up our children from their various summer camps and activities (we may have a "Meeting Part II" if we can). Our particular group (which actually meets every Wednesday, rain or shine, so to speak) consists of women in their 30’s through 70’s. Some are former supporters of Senator Clinton, some are long-time Democratic activists, and others (like me) are brand-spankin’ new to this. All told, we had a dozen people attend this morning’s Platform Meeting.

We all sat in a circle and each of us took a turn talking about which issue was most important to us. After each individual was done speaking, other members of the group would ask questions and make comments until we reached a consensus on the issue.

The issues they discussed ranged from the widening gap between rich and poor to energy independence and American values. After getting to express her ideas and discuss them with fellow supporters, Christine felt even better prepared to spread the word about Barack and his message of change.

Overall, I found the meeting tremendously helpful in getting my own thoughts about why I support Barack in order. It will be much easier to express my views to undecided voters as to why Barack should be President, after having had this opportunity to brainstorm and distill the issues with so many other incredibly bright supporters.

Get out there and sign up for a Platform meeting today! Be the change.

There are over 800 Platform Meetings left over the next four days. Find one near you today, and add your voice to the 2008 Democratic Platform.

Alex at Middletown Ohio Blog has more:

Many Middletown residents believe Barack Obama is the right man for the job. Jean from Preble County said that Obama is “the right man at the right time.” The general feeling locally is that people are tired of being “stuck in disappointment.” They look at Obama and are encouraged in his belief that the United States can achieve more.