Obama's MTV/MySpace Forum

On the day a new poll showed him in a statistical dead heat with rival Senator Hillary Clinton among Democratic caucus voters in Iowa, Illinois Senator Barack Obama brought his message to the young voters at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Monday, where MTV/MySpace's second presidential dialogue took place.

Among the points in that message: He's in it to win it, and one of his first priorities when elected president will be to undo many of the policies of the Bush administration.

"If I didn't think I was the best president for the job, I wouldn't be running," said Obama, wearing his traditional dark suit and white shirt with no tie.

Facing a range of questions on issues large — gay marriage, tensions with Iran, immigration, religion — and a bit more obscure — the exportation of computer waste to foreign countries and Net neutrality — Obama answered the questions in a measured tone, while displaying a bit more of the aggressiveness he's promised to bring to the race. He even gamely answered a student who asked who might play him in a movie adaptation of his life story.

During the dialogue, Obama pointedly mentioned twice that he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, drawing a sharp distinction between himself and Clinton — and he let loose on President Bush, decrying the failure of the No Child Left Behind education-reform program and promising as president to take a hard look at civil-liberties questions.

Answering a question about what kind of Supreme Court justices he might nominate, Obama — who noted that he taught constitutional law for 10 years at the University of Chicago — said, "Your next president will believe in the Constitution, which you can't say about your current president." He said he doesn't believe in allowing the Supreme Court to give a "blank check" to the president to engage in whatever "power grab" he or she wishes, and that one of his first priorities as president would be to review every executive order issued by Bush on issues such as warrantless wiretapping and overturn them if they are found to be unconstitutional.

Source: mtv.com