How much better did Obama do than Kerry in North Carolina.

[ccharles000]

Obama improved on Kerry by 597,541 votes and won the state by .4% or 13,692 votes. Obama did better than Kerry in all but seven counties. Here are the results from some of the most populated counties: Mecklenburg(Charlotte)Obama improved on Kerry by 10%, Wake(Raleigh)8%, and in Guilford(Greensboro and where I live)Obama did 9% better than Kerry. With the hispanic population rising and young people being more Democratic than Conservative and all the Yanks(I love you)moving here My beautiful state of North Carolina will be a swing state for now and than it will hopefully become a true blue state.

PS.It also helps when the Dem candidate comes here.



http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html

[TheWraith]

1. I have a friend down there who worked her butt off for Obama.

She was so happy that night when it turned blue, you wouldn't believe it.

[ccharles000]

3. I was so happy I could not stop grinning for days

[saltpoint]

2. I'm for North Carolina getting bluer and bluer.

I was thrilled that Obama did so well there.

But I think John Kerry deserved far better than he got in many parts of the country. I felt a surge of anti-intellectualism rising in many voters who thought he was too chilly and too learned. To those specific traits, I think the first is that he is not as egotistical as many politicians and sees himself as one among many; he does not grandstand. To the second trait, I think our candidates have generally been learned and experienced and beautifully-spoken (although Obama's rhetorical gifts are most evident), but our people are smarter than their people. Gore. Kerry. Obama. Three deeply and broadly intelligent folks.

It felt to me far too much that those who did not support those 3 men rejected them not on the viability or persuasion of policy positions but because they were intelligent and intellectual. Bush played the "ordinary guy" card with his hacked-off verbs and his stupid little pickup truck on that godforsaken ranch in Crawford.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Two million more black voters turned out in '08. Those votes sure would have helped Gore and Kerry.

[saltpoint]

11. Definitely.

[ccharles000]

5. kick

[PBS Poll-435]

6. I am very glad that there was a competitive NC/IN primary.

And look what happened... :woohoo:


:D

[masuki bance]

7. Edwards may have been a drag on the ticket. nt

[depakid]

8. A pretty major swing

Then again, the economy, the war and Katrina were pretty major swings- and the Republican candidates were incompetent, so under the circumstances, I wouldn't go attributing too much to the Obama or his Campaign.

[ccharles000]

9. Obama put a lot of money into NC and he visited many times.

I think he played a big part in winning here.

[depakid]

10. Oh, no doubt

but to make up that large a swing took exceptional circumstance as well as hard work.

[blm]

13. Many forget that most everyone knew the Dem nominee would win 2008 by the fall of 2006.

.

[blm]

12. Dean's DNC put alot of money into NC's party infrastructure to rebuild it after years of neglect

by previous party chairs, especially after 2000s theft became apparent - McAuliffe wouldn't lift a finger to help NC....or Ohio....or any other key electoral state that needed party muscle.

Obama was able to tap into a party infrastructure that complemented the black community organizations down here.

Kerry was stuck tapping into the party infrastructure as overseen by Terry McAuliffe (who collapsed it further in 4yrs even after 2000s theft) that existed when he became the nominee.

[karynnj]

16. Obama's not taking federal funds allowed him to spend in many

places that he would not have been able to without it. Without the example of 2004, Obama could not have refused public financing without paying it a far bigger political price. (In fact, Kerry was one of the most prominent people who defended him on this and he did it explaining the dilemma it caused in 2004. Even though it would have been far less a problem in 2008 - because the conventions were not 5 weeks apart.)

There are many other differences between 2004 and 2008 that affected the race. Given all the differences, it is amazing that Kerry did as well as he did in a very tough year. The most impressive thing about Obama's win was that he did far better than he had to and he won after running a classy, positive campaign, which has allowed him to win over many who voted against him.

- In 2004, in a Gallup poll the week before the election, 59% answered that the country was doing very well or fairly well. In 2008, over 80% said the country was going in the wrong direction. Both Kerry and Obama represented a big change. (Kerry is to the left of Obama on many issues) In 2004, the economy had not turned sour for the majority of people and we were only a year and a half into the war. The country was still traumatized and fearful - and those emotions work against change, especially if they do not thing the status quo intolerable. 2008 was a year where change was wanted - which is why everyone from Obama to Clinton to McCain.

- Bush as President got a huge amount of free media time. After he did a miserable job in the first debate on foreign policy, he announced he was making a major foreign policy speech and it was covered life on several channels. None of Kerry's announced major speeches - on Iraq, terrorism, the environment, health care etc were given that type of coverage --- except on CSPAN, which became my favorite channel. In 2008, Obama and McCain got reasonably equal time.

- Kerry had significantly less money to spend than Bush due to campaign finance laws. They had the same amount of money for the general election - but Kerry had to use it for 13 weeks versus Bush having to use it in 8. In the 5 weeks between the conventions, Bush could still use unlimited primary money.

- The media aided and abetted a character assassination. It was not the SBVT commercials themselves that did the damage, it was the media giving them and the liars free coverage long after they were caught in tens of lies. The fact is all of the Navy records were 100% in Kerry's favor. There was no "Kerry story" vs the SBVT, it was the official Navy records vs the liars. Yet the media never asked the liars for supporting documents or proof and they did not use the Navy records as proof. (to consider how outrageous this is imagine your employer refusing to consider the "A"s on your transcript when someone says you were a bad student - and then others claim you didn't disprove the charge.) (Obama's reaction to the Corsi book was exactly the same as Kerry's to that book - each team put out a memo within a day listing all the things provably wrong. Obama's team also added that Corsi was an author of the DISCREDITED Kerry book and gave the media the Free Republic posts the Kerry people found and gave to the media in 2004. By 2008, we had already rejected swiftboating.)

[tledford]

14. The last week before the election, I had a feeling Obama would take NC.

Fellow g'burger here, Charles!

[Allyoop]

15. North Carolina

Our little corner of NC (near TN and VA) Watauga County was one of the blue dots on the map for electing Obama. Unfortunately, Rep. Foxx is from this county - was not supported here, but Repukes in the Winston-Salem area carried her back to the House.

[ccharles000]

20. She is one of the worst repugs in NC

[beachmom]

17. In 2004, the DNC was run by Terry McAwful, who I believe just lost the VA governor primary

despite having the most money. The guy is feckless, and thankfully, will not be running our institutions anymore.

I also think the times had changed in 2008, and Obama was an extraordinary candidate.

[Mass]

18. What is the point of this post? Aside stating the obvious: that Obama won NC?\nt

[politicasista]

19. DNC Chairs: Dean = Biggest Winner, McAuliffe = Biggest Loser n/t