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Headquarters for Obama opens in Boone |
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Monday, 07 April 2008 |
by JAMISON DORAN
News Editor
Over 80 people attended an open house at Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) new headquarters at the corner of West King and Straight streets on Thursday night.
“The turnout far exceeded our expectations,” junior political science major Andrew T. Ball said. “We expected around 30-40 and had at least double that.”
Ball is active with the Obama campaign and has been working with other Obama supporters on the
campus of Appalachian State University.
 The Obama For America campaign opened its 15th office in North Carolina at the intersection of Boone’s King and Straight streets Thursday evening. Mayor Loretta Clawson attended the public kickoff, pledging her support for the campaign. Photo by Alisha Park
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“Last September we started a campus chapter of Students for Obama and we now have 82 members,” Ball said. “Students are very excited to be a part of this.”
Members of the community, elected officials, students, and professors met at the campaign
headquarters to find ways they can help the campaign in the lead-up to the May 6 North Carolina state
primary.
The headquarters will cover four or five different counties in the area, Ball said.
Mayor Loretta Clawson was in attendance, along with Lynne Mason and Steve Phillips, both members
of the Boone Town Council.
Clawson addressed the crowd and described the turnout as “absolutely incredible.”
She encouraged the Obama supporters to work to get people registered and to do what they can to
help get him elected.
“This is the most excited I have been in a long time,” Clawson said.
Clawson said she had previously been a supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) but after attending a
College Democrats meeting a few months ago where she saw a huge amount of supporter for Obama,
she began to change her mind.
“I started listening, reading and learning about [Obama] and his campaign and decided that with him,
we have a chance to move forward and move to the future,” she said.
Danielle A. Moore-Thomas, a senior ecology and environmental biology major, echoed some of the
sentiments Clawson shared.
“I had previously been uninvolved with the campaign or with politics in general, but I’m anxious to get
involved,” she said.
Moore-Thomas plans on volunteering through the headquarters over the next several weeks.
Ben Logan, a volunteer with the Obama campaign, said North Carolina might decide the next president
and with this great power comes great responsibility.
Logan said the campaign has been organized at a very local level and the biggest strength of this
campaign is the willingness of people to work hard to get Obama elected.
There will also be a second headquarters opening on King Street, although this one will cater directly to
students.
“We’re planning on having the student headquarters open within the next week over (the clothing store)
Terrapins,” said Matt B. Gravatt, a senior Spanish major. “We’ll work really closely with this
headquarters, but the one above Terrapins will mainly be for students.”
The Obama campaign has 15 campaign offices in North Carolina, including ones in Asheville, Chapel
Hill, Hickory, and Charlotte.
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