News-Record.com

Following up on my interview with Rory Blake, I had a chance to chat Monday with the man he hopes to unseat, Rep. Howard Coble.

Coble turns 75 this week and is making his 12th run for Congress this year.

As with the other story, we're planning a Q&A style piece for the print edition, but those who want can listen to the bulk of my interview with Coble can do that right here and now. (Coble did go off the record right at the end with something, so you won't get that.)

As always, full disclosure requires me to say I'm not a broadcast guy. My voice is grating, I stutter when asking questions and I don't think in sound bites. Ergo, this isn't going to sound pretty like a radio interview.

And also by way of full disclosure, Coble tends to be a bit more free-form in his answers than your average-stay-on-message politician and there are lots of segues in our conversation. So if you're following along with the tape and the story, you'll notice I had to reorder the Qs and As a bit to make them easier for readers to follow along. And as always, there are things in the interview that didn't make the paper.

Now for the audio files:

• File A: Coble talks about the political makeup of the NC Sixth Congressional District, Rory Blake’s residency ("I’m not going to make that an issue"), donating his papers to UNCG, and just how long he plans to keep running for office. (About 9 minutes.)
• File B: Coble talks about the Medicare prescription drug benefit: "I think it was a plan generously laced with good intentions, but also generously laced with confusion." (About 2 minutes.)
• File C: Coble talks about the Patriot Act reauthorization ("I don't believe it’s been abused"), port security and the now defunct (probably) Dubai ports deal. (About 7 minutes).
• File D: Coble talks about the NSA's warrantless wire tapping. In short, Coble said it wasn't a problem. (2 minutes)
• File E: Coble talks about his ambition to be House Judiciary Committee chairman, the federal budget deficit, the war in Iraq and a bill that he's co-sponsoring aimed at reducing prisoner recidivism. (About 9 minutes)

Now, a few questions for you:

• I did this interview over the phone, is the audio tolerable or does it annoy you too much?
  
• These two sessions were something of an experiment for me. Do you find the audio useful or should we concentrate on chugging out print pieces?
  
• Are there any state or federal candidates that you would particularly like to HEAR from, as well as read about in the paper?

You know the drill: the comments link below is open.