Obama plans to 'make government cool again'

Barack Obama addressed the wide distaste for government -- and the fact that he and John McCain are running against Washington -- at the forum on national service at Columbia University.

"Our campaign from the beginning has been about changing government," he said, recalling some great accomplishments of American government: Civil rights legislation, the interstate highway system, and the National Park system.

Obama would, he said, "transform Washington" and "make government cool again."

Obama also had some praise for small-town mayors -- like, not so long ago, Sarah Palin -- who, he said have "some of the toughest jobs in the country. We yak [in the Senate] but they...fill potholes and trim trees and make sure the garbage" is picked up.