Obama begins train tour to Washington

President-elect Obama, in a trip laced heavily with
historic references, on Saturday began a train tour from Philadelphia to the
nation’s capital.

“We are here to mark the beginning of our journey to
Washington,” Obama said at Philadelphia’s Union Station. “This is fitting
because it was here, in this city, that our American journey began. It was here
that a group of farmers and lawyers, merchants and soldiers, gathered to
declare their independence and lay claim to a destiny that they were being
denied.”

{mosads}Obama is beginning the final leg of his long path to the
presidency with grand aspirations of bringing sweeping changes to the country.

“Only a handful of times in our history has a generation
been confronted with challenges so vast. An economy that is faltering. Two
wars, one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged
wisely. A planet that is warming from our unsustainable dependence on oil,”
Obama said.

“And yet while our problems may be new, what is required
to overcome them is not. What is required is the same perseverance and idealism
that our founders displayed,” he added. “What is required is a new declaration
of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives – from ideology
and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry – an appeal not to our easy instincts
but to our better angels.”

Obama said he will be driven on his quest to fix the
nation’s problems by the people he met along his road to the White House,
stating that their “hopes and heartaches were the core of our cause; whose
dreams and struggles have become my own.”

Though he is riding on a wave of goodwill, a largely
successful transition and high approval ratings, Obama noted that his
administration would not be able to instantly fix all of the nation’s problems.

“There will be false starts and setbacks, frustrations
and disappointments,” said the incoming president, who has consistently sought
to mix his message of hope with attempts to scale back expectations of what he
can achieve. “And we will be called to show patience even as we act with fierce
urgency.”

Obama is expected to arrive in Washington Saturday night.