Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama visited Raleigh Thursday, giving a speech and answering questions for a little more than an hour at the Kerr Scott Building on the State Fairgrounds. Here are some of the highlight’s of the Obama event.
Hasn’t yet agreed to debateOne audience member asked Obama if he had decided yet whether he would agree to a debate April 27 at the RBC Center that already has the go-ahead from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign and CBS.
He noted Clinton had already declined an earlier debate date and said trying to campaign in both North Carolina and Indiana ahead of those two May 6 primaries is providing a challenge of how to reach the most voters before their primaries.
“If we do it in North Carolina, the folks in Indiana will say, ‘What about us?'” Obama said. “So we’re trying to figure out how to reach as many constituents as possible in a relatively short period of time.”
But he added that “we’re going to try to resolve this as quickly as possible.”
Students get prime seatingSome N.C. State students got the rare chance to be among the roughly 100 audience members who got to sit directly behind Obama during his remarks.
Dan Cohen, a senior in criminology, said as his friend Lock Whiteside went through the metal detectors someone asked him if he wanted one of the seats. That’s how he and Whiteside got so close to Obama and eventually shook his hand afterward.
“He’s a great person, and he energizes young people,” Whiteside said of Obama. “And that’s why I support him.”
Raven Jones, a sophomore in civil engineering who has worked with Students for Obama, said she liked the thought Obama put into all his answers to audience members’ questions.
Drew Wall, a junior in history education who also had a seat behind Obama, said he liked the candidate’s comments on how No Child Left Behind focuses too much on rigid standardized testing rather than students’ actual progress and does not give schools the money they need.
“I especially as a history education major appreciated how he addressed No Child Left Behind and the education issues, early childhood all the way up to college, making it affordable for students,” Wall, an Obama volunteer, said.
North Carolina gets attentionKayla Anderson, a senior in communication, said she’s excited about the big role North Carolina has in the Democratic primary and the chance for people such as Obama to come to Raleigh.
“It was awesome,” Anderson said. “It’s so neat that North Carolina is getting all this attention that we don’t normally get.”
Anderson, who is 20, said she is excited about the chance to vote for the first time in a presidential race. She found out about Thursday’s event just a day earlier and jumped at the chance to go.
“My friend grabbed some tickets that they were giving out on the Brickyard,” Anderson said. “He got two, and I begged him for it.”
She said there’s no doubt who she’ll be casting her ballot for.
“I’m definitely an Obama supporter,” Anderson said.
Boy steals the showKameryn Garel-McCullough, a 9-year-old fourth-grade student from Green Hope Elementary, stole the show for a couple minutes when he told Obama he had won an elected position in his class, then asked the candidate how he could become president one day.
“You’re a very well-spoken young man, and I may need some tips from you because you’ve already won the election,” Obama told the boy.
Garel-McCullough said it was a great experience to speak with Obama.
“It was so nice to talk to a senator who has a good chance of being the president of the United States,” he said.
