Obama headquarters opens

By CARRIE KIRSCHNER
The Independent

ASHLAND May 12, 2008 11:25 pm

— Local Barak Obama supporters turned out by the dozen Monday night to officially kick off the Illinois senator’s local Get Out the Vote Campaign.
According to Chris Kolb, an Ashland volunteer with Kentucky For Obama, more than 100 residents have already begun canvassing the area ahead of next week’s primary. He said volunteers are also manning a phone bank at the office, at 1133 Carter Ave., in efforts to get supporters out to the polls May 20.
Obama’s national campaign has chosen the Ashland/Boyd County office as the working location for national staffer Kyle Lierman. Lierman was present Tuesday night but said he was not authorized to speak with local media.
Ashland businesswoman Bola Blunk, whose company owns Blue Ribbon Lanes and the Gukundi Multiplex, is leasing the Carter Avenue site to the Obama campaign and was among the supporters at Monday’s event.
Blunk has had large signs up for weeks at the location touting Obama’s platform and said she was tickled when the national campaign chose her building for its local headquarters. An immigrant to the United States herself, Blunk said she is “the epitome of the story Obama is talking about.”
“I am one of those success stories,” she said, adding her support goes beyond that tie. “I truly believe for once in this county we have a chance to put someone in power who can reconcile this nation,” she said, adding an Obama presidency would give the nation an opportunity to prove to the rest of the world the county really has all the values it so often preaches.
Obama is also the only choice for lifelong Democrat Betty Johnson, 69, of Ashland. Johnson said she believes Obama “is the only candidate running.”
“To me it’s just commonsense,” she said.
Johnson said she has visited the building more than a dozen times in the last few weeks waiting for it to open to pledge her time to the campaign.
“I needed to know what needed to be done,” she said.
According to Kolb, there is much to be done not just for next week’s primary but to establish a base for Obama’s campaign this fall.
He brushes off the suggestion by some that Kentucky Democrats will vote overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton next week.
“People have said that about states in the past,” Kolb said, “Kentucky is a proportional state ... This is still very much ongoing.”
CARRIE KIRSCHNER can be reached at ckirschner@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2653.