Banner questions Obama

Sen. Barack Obama spoke at a free rally at Asheville High School Memorial Stadium on Sunday before an estimated crowd of 28,000. Blue Banner news editor Jonathan Walczak, taking part in a conference call for student journalists, questioned Sen. Obama Saturday on North Carolina's importance in the election.

A transcript of the interview follows. Pick up a copy of this Thursday's Banner for more coverage of Obama's Asheville campaign stop.

Jonathan Walczak: Hi Senator, you're going to be in Asheville tomorrow to prepare for the debate and you're holding a rally here tomorrow. We haven't had a major candidate here at this point in the game since Richard Nixon. Do you think you can win here and how does North Carolina , and Western North Carolina in particular, play into an Obama win come election day?

Sen. Barack Obama: We definitely think we can win North Carolina . We are tied with John McCain in North Carolina . It's going to be a hard-fought contest. Western North Carolina is traditionally more Republican, but I think that people are looking at the catastrophic situation on Wall Street and how it's spilling onto Main Street . We got job numbers yesterday showing huge job losses for nine consecutive months. I think people are going to want fundamental change. And if we can make a clear case that John McCain represents the same policies as George Bush, when it comes to the economy and that I want to move in a fundamentally different direction, creating a new energy economy, fixing our health care system, providing college scholarships for young people so they can afford to go, ending the war in Iraq and reinvesting much of that money to be spent here in the United States, we make a clear choice, then I think the people of North Carolina can respond. I have to say though, and I just want to end on this note, young voters are going to make the difference. Not just in North Carolina , but all across the country. If young voters turn out at levels that they can turn out, then it could end up being the decisive voting block in this election. So I hope that everybody is getting registered and I hope that everybody is voting in many states including North Carolina . You can early vote, you can essentially go and register on the same day. I hope people are taking advantage of that because I think we have an opportunity not just to change our country but to change the world in this election.

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