Obama, in another of his tour de force speeches, spoke of his personal connection to the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
During his speech, he deplored the wanton terrorist attacks in India recently and recalled his Indian and Pakistani roommates while attending college and joked that he was a peacemaker even before he was in elected office.
Obama also spoke of his meeting with visiting Pakistan Prime Yousuf Raza Gilani and his discussion about economic opportunities for the people of Pakistan and the rest of South Asia and the Middle East, to wean them away from extremism.
"Being here is especially meaningful to me because I consider myself to be an honorary AAPI member and I think I've got some pretty good credentials," he noted. "As many of you know, I was born and raised in Hawaii. I grew up also in Indonesia and Southeast Asia."
"When I went to college, my roommates were Indian and Pakistani... so I was creating peace," he said to peals of laughter and applause, and the 600 plus audience -- who had paid anywhere from $250 (for students and young professionals) to $10,000 apiece (that included a photo-op) for the luncheon -- cracked up, when he added, "I was a peacemaker long before I held office."
"Of course, most importantly, I've got a sister, who's half-Indonesian, who's married to a Chinese-Canadian and I don't know what that makes my niece," he said to more laughter. "So, this is part of my family, this is part of my DNA. This is part of my genetic markup."
"It is partly because of this background and it is partly because of Illinois politics and the incredibly diverse and vibrant AAPI community," that both in Washington, DC and in Illinois he has been "fighting on a range of issues that are important to the community from veterans benefits to comprehensive immigration reform."
"You can trust me when I say that I will be fighting for you and making sure you are represented in the highest reaches of government when I am president," Obama said.
"I am going to fight for civil rights and civil liberties," Obama pledged and said, "when your name is Barack Obama, you are concerned about racial profiling."
He spoke of his teaching constitutional law and his work as a civil rights attorney and pointed out, "I helped Illinois pass one of the country's first racial profiling laws and I will uphold our constitution as president of the United States."
"I am going to stand up for your rights here at home and I will stand up for human rights abroad and make a world that is more free and more equal," he said.
"Building a world that is more free and equal and more just also means forging a more effective regional framework in Asia and the Pacific. And, that is why I am going to work with America's partners around the world, not just to defeat terrorism, but also to prevent the kind of violence that we saw over the weekend in India and to promote political stability and unleash economic prosperity," Obama said.
"I just had the opportunity to meet with the prime minister of Pakistan who is here and talk about the fact that the only way we are going to be successful over the long-term in defeating extremism in South Asia and in the Middle East and in South-East Asia is if we are giving people opportunities. People have the chance for a better life are not as likely to turn to the ideologies of violence and despair," Obama pointed out.
In talking about issues like education, Obama said, "We've got to make sure that college is affordable to every young person, and by the way, we should encourage immigrant students to study in our colleges and universities and then encourage them to stay to make them start businesses that are going to be engines of growth."
On foreign policy, he said, "We should have a foreign policy that doesn't look inward, but that continues to look outward and recognises that the world is getting smaller and that the critical challenges that we face -- whether it is climate change or terrorism or pandemics or refugees, conflict all around the world -- that these are problems we cannot solve alone."
"That we are going to solve them because we have led by example and we've led by deeds and we've created coalitions and partners all across the world -- that we are listening and building consensus instead of just going to fixate on what our agenda is," he added.
"All these things are possible, but we are going to have to take advantage of this election. We are going to have to seize the moment," Obama said.
"It is commonplace to say this is the most important election in my lifetime," he said to much laughter, "This is the most important election in my lifetime. This time the cliches are true and we have to seize the moment and all of us are going to have to participate."
"What we are trying to do is give birth to a new kind of politics. What we are trying to do is usher in a vision of America that is inclusive and participatory and where everybody feels that they are a part. That's what is at stake in this election. That's what we are fighting for, so that your children and grandchildren, when they decide 'I want to be president of the United States or I want to be a Congressman or I want to be a businessman', don't see any feelings about it -- that they feel as wholly a part of this country as anybody," Obama said.
"If you all stand with me and work with me, and knock on doors and make phone calls and go out into your communities and get everybody out to vote," Obama asserted, "I guarantee that we will not just win this election, we will change this country, we are going to change the world."
