Campaign ramps up as Obama starts national tour in North Carolina

[DeepModem Mom]

USA Today/AP: Campaign ramps up as Obama starts national tour in N.C.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Barack Obama (rallied) in North Carolina on Monday as his campaign begins to expand operations in the state, hoping to become the first Democratic presidential winner here in three decades.

Raleigh (was) Obama's first stop on a two-week national tour to talk about the economy, a strong indicator that he considers the state one he might be able to swing to his side. North Carolina, which holds 15 electoral votes, hasn't voted for a Democratic president since Jimmy Carter in 1976, but its large black population and bloc of new voters changes the election outlook this year.

North Carolina Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield, a longtime Obama supporter and surrogate, said the state's growing population has brought in an influx of progressive voters. And he argued that North Carolina isn't as reliably red as the GOP claims, noting that former President Bill Clinton lost the state by one percentage point in 1992. "There's no question that North Carolina's in play," Butterfield said Sunday. "We intend to win North Carolina, and you don't win North Carolina without working hard."...

Republicans, meanwhile, aren't ready to concede that the state will be that competitive. President Bush won North Carolina by 12 percentage points in 2004, and that was when former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards was a vice presidential candidate on the ticket of Sen. John Kerry. Presumptive GOP presidential candidate John McCain launched his first general election ad campaign last week by targeting 10 key states — but his list didn't include North Carolina....

That's not to say that McCain is going to skip a campaign in North Carolina, Blount said. The GOP expects that Obama will make a hard run in the state because McCain advisers believe he'll need to win some Southern states to mathematically secure the presidency....

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-06-08-obama_N.htm