Obama: I Need Ed Markey in Senate

President Barack Obama made a trip to Boston on Wednesday to stump for Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Edward Markey, as the special election to fill John Kerry's former seat nears.

According to White House press pool reports, Obama appeared at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center in Roxbury and attempted to get a crowd of Markey supporters fired up and ready to go.

Obama said "too many folks in Washington are putting the next election ahead of the next generation" but that Markey, a Malden Democratic congressman since 1976, would be part of the process to change that.

"I need folks in the Unites States Senate who wake up every day thinking about the folks who sent them there ... I need Ed Markey in the United States Senate," Obama said, according to pool reports.

Several other dignitaries spoke before Obama, with Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino telling the crowd Markey was the right man for the job.

"Boston, Massachusetts always makes the right choice," Menino said, according to pool reports. "We made the right choice with [U.S. Senator] Elizabeth Warren. We made the right choice with [Governor] Deval Patrick. We made the right choice with Barack Obama. Now it's the right choice to elect Ed Markey."

Before arriving in Roxbury, Obama visited a restaurant in the South End.

A White House official told the press pool that Obama met with the family of slain MIT Police Officer Sean Collier while at the Reggie Lewis Center.

Markey is set to face off with Republican nominee Gabriel Gomez, a Cohasset businessman, in the election on June 25.

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