News-Record.com

I sat down Friday afternoon with Rory Blake, the Democrat who is running against Howard Coble for North Carolina's Sixth District congressional seat.

Update: Click here for Sunday's Q&A from the paper. I'm not sure what's up with the formatting for online, since the Qs and the As aren't marked differently.

The print product will be is a Q&A style article, scheduled to run in Sunday's paper. But because I like my readers (all dozen of you) I'll let you listen to the audio version of the interview right now.

I'll post a link to the article here once it runs. Blake is 55 and a retired pharmacist.

There's plenty in the audio that won’t make the print story. For example, you'll find this exchange toward the end of the first audio take:

Q: Is you're campaign going to have a strong online component?

A: "We're working on that now ... It's a given. We're going to have everything that we can have to communicate our messages. In fact, that's how we're going to get our way out of the deficit. We're going to find new ways to innovate and reach the goals we need to."

Blake said his campaign website will be www.blake06.com, which should start as a static site soon. And, he said a blog would be in the website's future.

A couple housekeeping notes, I don't have the nice transitions you'd get with someone who does radio for a living. The tape picks up and ends abruptly, with a lot of the awkward introductory cut off the end and beginning.

Also, I plan a similar Q&A session with Coble for Monday and will offer it up for Tuesday's paper.

Now for the sound. There are two audio files:

• Click here for the first part of interview. This part of the interview covers mainly tactical and political issues, such as his status as a candidate who doesn't live in the district.
• Click here for the second part of interview. These are the more issue-oriented questions, covering the war in Iraq, the prescription drug benefit, etc...

As always, discussion welcome via the comment link below.