by Rob Christensen: Published: May 11, 2008 12:30 AM
There has been a lot of history in that old basketball barn, Reynolds Coliseum -- the Dixie Classic, Everett Case and David Thompson. We can now add Sen. Barack Obama's victory speech Tuesday night -- which had the look and feel of a convention nomination acceptance speech.
Obama did not actually break out the champagne -- although he did have a Pabst Blue Ribbon at The Raleigh Times (the downtown restaurant, not the defunct afternoon newspaper).
Nor did Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton concede after last week's primary.
But after North Carolina, she was, as the New York Post headline succinctly put it, "TOAST."
Clinton did not need to win North Carolina, but she needed to do better than the 14 points by which she lost. She barely won Indiana, a state she needed to win.
North Carolina Democrats -- and independents who voted in the primary -- determined there were would be no Clinton Restoration. There would be no Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton rotation.
We may have also seen the last hurrah of former President Clinton.
Bill Clinton worked North Carolina as if it was his first race for governor of Arkansas.
In town after town, he would mount the stage of a school or community center or a flat bed truck to talk about his wife's run for the White House. He visited at least 58 towns and cities -- some more than once.
On Monday alone, the only two-term Democratic president in my lifetime made nine speeches, starting in Elizabeth City at 7:30 a.m. and finishing in Raleigh at 11:30 p.m. before flying to Charlotte. It was, Clinton said, the most speeches he had ever made in day.
Hillary Clinton fretted about what all the barbecue might be doing to his arteries.
"Bill Clinton was practically running for mayor of small-town North Carolina," said Craig Schirmer, who was Obama's state director.
The Clintons laid it on the line in North Carolina and Indiana. We now know that Hillary Clinton was financing much of her operations out of her own pocketbook, having lent her campaign $6.4 million.
While the Clintons were making one last major effort, the well-financed Obama campaign sought -- and delivered -- a crushing blow.
Not since the landmark 1984 Senate race between Republican Jesse Helms and Democrat Jim Hunt has North Carolina seen such a powerful operation as Obama put on the ground.
For a month, Obama became the Wal-Mart of Tar Heel politics -- blanketing the state with 81 offices, 300 paid staffers and 15,300 volunteers. Clinton had 20 offices and 50 paid staffers. Obama dominated the airwaves.
The Obama turnouts in North Carolina and Indiana were the highest of any primary or caucus in the nation, according to Schirmer.
Schirmer called the get-out-the- vote effort "the most unprecedented and historical effort the state has ever seen."
A week before the election, both the Clinton and Obama campaigns thought the race was in single digits, which is why both candidates redoubled their efforts here.
But in the end, the Obama turnout -- especially from the early voting and especially among African-Americans -- was too much for Clinton to overcome.
"If you are starting a race 25 points down, you need to have a perfect game and an opponent who commits a lot of turnovers," said Ace Smith, Clinton's state director. "They ran a solid campaign. They didn't commit many turnovers."
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