On tuesday evening Barack Obama came to the NC State Fairgrounds near NCSU for a townhall meeting. Having talked to some grassroots staffers, it should be noted that they told me North Carolina was considered a "tier one state" by the campaign. Tier one means it is at the highest level of importance to them along with Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania etc. They really see this red state turning blue with an Obama victory here. It is with this in mind that the townhall was planned.
The meeting was scheduled to begin at 6:30pm with tickets having been handed out the day before. Doors opened at 4:30pm and there was seating for approximately 2500 people in the exposition center where it was held. I arrived just after 5pm to find all seats full and myself in the standing room only area. This notion was a bit disappointing but none the less I was still happy to be there and it was clear North Carolina is passionate about this election.
The following is video of most of the opening speech with the exception of all the thank yous as the beginning and a few lines about how Republicans campaign (had to do a battery switch in the camera). In addition I had enough room to record in full 3 questions with Barack's answers. I will let the recordings speak for themselves:
If you go to the actual youtube site you can watch in higher quality. My youtube id is eyewall41: http://www.youtube.com/...
In closing I was proud to see fellow citizens ask some real questions asked rather then just fluff. Barack handled himself very well and is surely getting better with the townhall format. In the end I wish I recorded the final question which came from a homeless veteran. If I had I would have enclosed that in an e-mail to Bill 'O The Clown. Finally I tried to ask a question but was not called on. I wanted to ask Barack's feeling on accountability and prosecution of Bush Administration officials after the president leaves office. I also wanted to include how would he fix the justice department? I just hope to hell we don't blow this one!