Obama camp: He'll visit; just not this week
Security concerns didn’t derail Sen. Barack Obama’s plans to campaign in Greensboro this week, and he will make a visit to the area soon, a spokesman said today.
“It had nothing to do with security,” said Dan Leistikow, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign.
The Illinois senator, who is competing against New York Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, is planning stops in Charlotte and Fayetteville this week. The state’s primary will be the largest remaining after Pennsylvania votes next month.
Leistikow said that scheduling and other considerations led to the decision not to come to Greensboro this week.
The News & Record reported that Mayor Yvonne Johnson said that a proposed rally at The Depot downtown was canceled because of security issues.
Johnson said today that security was not a reason Obama would not be here this week.
She said that while security was among the considerations at the Depot, she didn’t say it was the reason the visit didn’t happen there or elsewhere in the city.
“If I gave that impression, I certainly didn’t mean to,” Johnson said. “It was a miscommunication.”
In any case, Obama plans to visit, Leistikow said.
Typically, North Carolina’s relatively late primary has made it irrelevant in the race for presidential nominations.
But with a race that has lasted longer than many observers predicted, the nation’s 10th-most populous state suddenly finds itself with a primary on May 6 that means something.
“Sen. Obama will be campaigning in the Greensboro area very soon,” Leistikow said. “We’ll be campaigning aggressively across the state in the next several weeks.”