"We cannot maintain the status quo, that's out of the question" said Governor Easley. He continued, "At the end of the day after everyone's been talking about who's most like Paris Hilton or who Angelina Jolie's going to vote for, people are going to come back to that and it's going to be very difficult for people to vote for the status quo as opposed to change."
Easley and Obama's North Carolina campaign director Marc Farinella say Obama's ground crews called "Change Crews" will help put North Carolina in play.
"With the right Democrat and the right priorities and the right backdrop of issues, it's not such a stretch to see Barack Obama win North Carolina in 2008," said Farinella. He continued,"It is clearly a competitive state this year and we can win here."
Campaigning for Obama is a reversal for Governor Easley. For the May democratic primary, he endorsed Hillary Clinton and even taped a campaign commercial for her.
In the latest exclusive ABC 11 Eyewitness News SurveyUSA poll released yesterday, Obama trails Republican candidate John McCain among registered voters 49-45 percent. However, the Obama campaign says the soaring democratic and unaffiliated voter registration in the state will help turn the tide toward their candidate this fall. Since January, more than 162,000 North Carolinians have registered to vote as Democrats. Nearly 19,000 have registered as Republicans. More than 113,000 have registered unaffiliated.
