Barack Obama's field organizers are getting an education.

About 180 Obama Organizing Fellows went to a three-day training session last weekend at a fraternal organization hall in Durham. The volunteers, mostly students and recent graduates, had been chosen from thousands after writing essays.

At the session, they were trained on how to make sure a voter-registration form is properly filled out, how to organize voter registration drives and how to find volunteers, among other things. One of the trickier topics: How to talk to Hillary Clinton supporters.

Lakeisha McCoy, a hostess at the Sheraton Atlantic Beach who recently moved to Morehead City from New York City, said she applied because her family is politically active and she is still "naive enough to do that sort of thing."

Like other fellows, she works part-time at the hotel, so she has the 30 hours a week required to meet with local politicians, organize house meetings and set up local Obama support groups. She said her job is to help Carteret County, which is "still pretty polarized" from the election.

"That's the Obama strategy: Try to mend the fences with Clinton supporters and get the voters out," she said.  

Supporters argued incentives would help smaller businesses too.

Rep. Marvin Lucas, a Cumberland County Democrat whose district is home to the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant, said that the incentives will help the spin-off companies that work with them.

"The many food vendors that benefit from large operations will benefit," he said. "Yard maintenance companies will benefit. Janitorial operations will benefit. Small mechanical operations will benefit."

Rep. Margaret Highsmith Dickson, a Fayetteville Democrat, said the loss of Goodyear jobs could hurt convenience store owners, appliance salesmen and real estate agents. She noted her brother-in-law sells cars in Harnett County.

"He called me over the weekend to express his concern about what the failure to support Goodyear will mean to him and to his quality of life," she said.

Rep. Arthur Williams, a Washington Democrat, reminded his colleagues that natural rubber from Malaysia and Indonesia comes through the ports in Wilmington and Morehead City for Goodyear.

"Let's keep the jobs in North Carolina in rubber in Morehead City," he said.