GOP: N.C. not competitive

Submitted by ryanteaguebeckwith on June 9, 2008 - 7:02am.
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Barack Obama's campaign says North Carolina is competitive.

But state Republican leaders are not yet ready to say that the state might be up for grabs for the first time since 1976, noting that President Bush won the state by 12 percentage points in 2004 even with Sen. John Edwards on the ticket.

Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain did not include North Carolina in the 10 states he aired his first general election ad in last week.

Ferrell Blount, a senior McCain adviser and former chairman of the N.C. Republican Party, said Sunday that McCain will appeal to the state's conservative Democrats.

"Obama played well to the Democratic base here (for the primary), but when you start talking about the general election, I'm not exactly sure Obama's going to be as strong as they think he'll be," Blount said.

But he said McCain will campaign here.

"We will take North Carolina very seriously," Blount said. "We will have a full-blown campaign in North Carolina until we feel secure that North Carolina is locked down." (AP)

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Re: GOP: N.C. not competitive

Submitted by BarbaraMCampbell on June 9, 2008 - 8:32am.

As a small business owner and unaffiliated voter, I'm impressed by Senator Obama's economic policies. For the past eight years, Washington has worked to line the pockets of the rich at the expense of the middle-class. Finally, we have a candidate, Senator Obama, who does not take donations from special interests and has raised the vast majority of his funds from individual, small donors. This means that he doesn't "owe" special interests any favors once he's in the White House.

On the other hand, McCain has been a Washington insider for most of his life and is part of the same network as George W. Bush. Bush economic policies would continue under a McCain presidency - huge deficits while ensuring that the rich get richer. The GOP pretends that they're the tax cut party, when in fact they cut taxes for the wealthiest 1% of the population.

As a member of the middle class, I've watched my expenses go up as my income and investments have gone down on the Republicans' watch.

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