Bill Clinton takes time for burger, b-ball

Sorry to disappoint you, FFC1304, but good Democrats are welcome in Charlotte along with good Republicans and independents!

We'd rather get involved in a good debate over issues and problems rather than leave it to everyone else to figure out some answers for us.

--Charlotte native

A standing ovation for Billary in a restaurant in Charlotte? Id expect more sensible reactions like 'get the hell outta here' which is what Id be yelling...

It was great to see Bill Clinton stopping in our old Central Avenue neighborhood in Charlotte, which is not unlike Raleigh's Hillsborough Street business district across from N.C. State.

Back in 1960 when we were in elementary school at Midwood School on Central Avenue, we studied our "Weekly Readers" to learn about the group of Democratic presidential candidates who were competing for the right to oppose Republican Vice President Richard Nixon in the fall campaign. I was heading up the Adlai Stevenson forces in our sixth grade class, and somebody else was advocating for Lyndon Johnson. Then one of our classmates, Van Smith, spoke up to say that he thought that senator named John Kennedy from Massachusetts would make a good President.

I reckon you could say that our Van Smith showed the political savoir-faire of Raleigh's Van Eure. But at any rate, looking back on that storybook 1960 campaign from the vantage point of our youth nearly half a century ago, it is entirely fitting that Bill Clinton, who had the chance to meet President Kennedy when he was growing up, would come a-calling for votes in our beloved Central Avenue business district where I had my Midwood School patrol post and where we watched the thrilling movie, "North by Northwest," at the Plaza Theater, which used to be on Central Avenue near The Plaza.

That neighborhood is also the location of Charlotte's venerable Brodt Music Store, in case former President Clinton needs to stock up on some saxophone music next time he's in the Queen City of the Carolinas. We even have a Commonwealth Avenue running through that neighborhood, but it's not as big as Boston's major thoroughfare known popularly as "Comm Ave," where Tip O'Neill and his Beantown Democrats used to cruise looking for votes at election time.

With Sen. Barack Obama coming into North Carolina this week in his nomination competition with Sen. Hillary Clinton, perhaps many other people will have some "Old North State" political memories from yesteryear to share with the Dome pundits before it's all said and done. It could very well turn out to be a historic presidential primary campaign for the people of North Carolina.

David McKnight

Is that one of WRAL morning news co-anchor Bill Leslie's Carolina Blue ties that former Preisdent Bill Clinton was wearing in Cary? Leslie probably has enough of them to outfit all the candidates in both parties.

David McKnight