Still undecided in the Tar Heel state

While Obama is being declared a winner in North Carolina tonight, there are still some residents that have yet to cast their vote in the Tar Heel state – the undecided superdelegates.

I spoke with Rep. Brad Miller, an undecided superdelegate
last month. The Congressman represents an area that includes Raleigh, Greensboro and Burlington, and described it as “two-thirds urban and one-third rural.”

I asked if the pressure to choose before the May 6 primary
was mounting.

“I’m getting to hear from a lot of people,” Miller said by
phone. “I’ve spoken to Obama in the last three weeks and Clinton in the last two weeks. Their campaigns have been in contact.”

He said that conservations are not desperate pleas for
votes. Instead the Clinton and Obama camps are trying to get “as much (information) from me and what my take is on each candidate” and are asking “what my concerns are.

“They’re not annoying,” Miller said.

Yet mostly he’s been hearing from friends and colleagues that are supporting either candidate.

“I talked to a friend of more than 20 years… and is working
for senator Clinton,” he said. “I’ve gotten a variety of emails from others…they’re doing it (contacting me) on their own.”

Miller said that he would wait until his constituents
selected a candidate to make a formal decision. He said he doubted that a declaration of support before the primary would sway voters in his district, as he can barely sway his family.

“My 93-year old mother is for Clinton. My nieces and nephews
are for Obama,” he said. “And I don’t think I’d change any votes in my immediate family.”

Considering his rural constituencies, I asked Miller what he
thought of previous comments by Obama about so-called “bitter” voters that “cling to guns and religion.”

“I think the voters understand the candidates running,” he
said. “They aren’t going to see the occasional sentence that comes out wrong as a deep, disqualifying character flaw. If I though Obama didn’t respect the religious base, that would be a problem for me.”

Miller said that Obama and Clinton needed to talk about the
economy and address the concerns of working and middle-class families in the state.

“We’ve lost a lot of jobs in the textiles, furniture, and
tobacco industries,” he said. “You need to understand what their lives are like and what their concerns are and (feel) the candidate is going to be on their side.”

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