The Barack Obama campaign Wednesday released a list of 50 former North Carolina supporters of John Edwards who are backing the Illinois senator in the May 6th primary.
Rob Christensen reports that the list included Congressmen David Price, and G.K Butterfield, former state House Majoirty leader Phil Baddour of Goldsboro, attorney Wade Byrd of Fayetteville, former state Democratic party chairs Libba Evans and Wade Smith, former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt, former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Henry Frye, and Jim Phillips, the chairman of the University of North Carolina Board of Governors.
"We are going to be in the trenches helping him to do well," said Ed Turlington, a Raleigh attorney who was general chairman of Edwards’ 2004 presidential campaign.
Turlington and state Rep. Pricey Harrison said that Obama shared many of the ideas of Edwards on such issues as fighting poverty, and changing the culture of Washington.
Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who dropped out of the presidential race in January, has suggested that he and his wife Elizabeth were unlikely to endorse.
