Carole King: If Obama leads, nation will follow

Singer-songwriter/political activist draws crowd to The Met campaign appearance

If you're on a course that will take you off a cliff, what do you do?Change direction, right? Well, that's where we are today we need to change course, and that's what Barack Obama will offer, said famed singer-songwriter and political activist Carole King, 66, now of Idaho, speaking as an Obama surrogate at a campaign rally attended by approximately 75 people at The Met coffee house in North Conway Wednesday afternoon.By contrast, she said, a vote for Republican presumptive presidential nominee John McCain is a vote for more of the Bush administration policies that got the nation headed for that cliff. She charged that McCain despite his reputation as a maverick who won the New Hampshire Republican primary in 2000 has voted lockstep with Bush 93 percent of the time on issues ranging from health care, energy policies and the war in Iraq.King, who campaigned for U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in Conway and Berlin in 2004, said she was excited to be back in the Granite State, where she said she skied in the 1960s at Mount Sunapee, and where she first gained a respect for the inquisitiveness and due diligence of New Hampshire voters when she first worked on U.S. Sen. Gary Hart's presidential campaign in 1984. During that time, she said she first met Jeanne Shaheen, a future governor of the state who lost the 2002 U.S. Senate election to U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu, whom she is running against again in 2008.I hope you re-elect the Democrats who are already in office, and that you elect all those who are not in office yet, and that you elect Jeanne Shaheen to the Senate, said King, standing on the stairway of the packed Met Wednesday afternoon.She also said that many of her neighbors in Idaho are Republican. She said she is urging all to look at the election with a clear mind, and to vote for Obama for change. She later told The Conway Daily Sun that many of her Republican neighbors are whispering to her that they will be voting for Obama.I'm not saying to bash Republicans. And Republicans can continue to vote Republican but not this election, King told the audience, echoing what she has been saying at other stops during her three-day campaign swing through New Hampshire in Nashua, Concord and Bedford on Tuesday; Laconia, Conway and Wolfeboro Wednesday; and Rochester Thursday.She said it's true that she is a former Hillary Clinton for president supporter, saying she has been a longtime friend of the New York senator.What you all did when you came together in Unity [N.H.} a month ago was very healing. And it set the lead for the country, said King, commenting on the unity event in which Obama and Clinton appeared on the same stage after Obama had secured the Democratic nomination. She said she is urging all Clinton supporters to join forces with the Obama campaign to bring about change for America and the world.Hillary says there are 18 million cracks now in the glass ceiling. And she did. But the timing was not right for a woman president this time, said King, adding, I know that a lot of women in this country are grieving I honor and understand your grief. But I say: support this man, and he will eliminate the glass ceiling, said King, noting that both Clinton and Obama are amazingly smart.To those who say Obama lacks experience, King said he has shown throughout his career that he has experience in the right areas, working for the poor in Illinois as an activist and later as a state senator before being elected to the U.S. Senate.She took pains to say she does not question McCain's honor or service to the country as a former Navy pilot who was imprisoned by the North Vietnamese after getting shot down. But that does not qualify a person for the presidency, she said.Sen. McCain said that he knows how to win wars. I wanted to ask him: what wars exactly have you won? said King, who said that whatever experience Obama lacks he will make up for by surrounding himself with those who do have the experience to offer him advice that will anable him to make informed judgments.John McCain supported Dick Cheney's energy policies. We need to raise fuel oil standards. Barack Obama says alternative energy will create jobs; it will not outsource jobs, said King.She said New Hampshire remains a special place in her heart, especially Berlin, where she met the mother of one of America's first-killed servicemen in the Iraqi campaign when she visited there in 2004 while campaigning for Kerry. She did not name that soldier or his mother out of respect for her privacy, but said she thinks of the mother and son often. She also said she remembers meeting a mother of a young child in the still economically depressed Berlin in 2004 who told her that she could not afford to bring that child to the doctor's as she did not have health insurance.She said Obama as president would bring health care reform while McCain would offer more of the same as the Bush administration.Several of the attendees brought along copies of Carole King CDs or albums, which the singer agreed to sign after her talk. She also posed for photos. Tom Donovan, 12, of Redstone and buddy Makenzie Lambert, 14, of Madison, among the lucky fans who had their photograph taken with the writer or co-writer of such songs as Up on the Roof and You're So Far Away, to name a few.Local resident and F.A.S.T. taxi driver Elizabeth Irwin brought along sheet music to King's hit, You've Got a Friend, which the singer autographed. She also posed for a photo with the very grateful Irwin, who is learning guitar.King was 20 minutes late to the appearance, so during the lull, state District 2 Senate candidate and judge Bud Martin took the opportunity to address the crowd. King then appeared, and was introduced by incumbent state Rep. Ed Butler, D-Hart's Location, who is also running for re-election. Butler wittily worked several song titles from King's repertoire into his introduction, much to the delight of the crowd, using such song titles as If You Lead, I Will Follow You, referring to Obama; You've Got a Friend, and I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet to have such a gifted singer-songwriter stand beside him at The Met.She also led the audience through a singing of the choruses to two of her a songs at the end of her talk, leading everyone in singing, I Feel the Earth Move and If You Lead, I will Follow You.King was most active as a singer during the first half of the 1970s, though she was a successful songwriter for considerably longer both before and after this period.King has won four Grammy Awards and has been inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her songwriting, along with long-time partner Gerry Goffin. Her 1971 album, Tapestry, was No. 1 on the charts for 15 weeks, and stayed on the charts for six years.Interviewed briefly by the Sun after her talk, she said she has always been interested in politics and feels that she never speaks out on an issue unless she has done her homework. She said she has often testified on many environmental and animal rights causes dear to her heart in Congress, and will continue to do so.Asked if she believes surrogates, especially of the celebrity kind, succeed in swaying the public's opinion, King said she believes it is helpful in getting candidates' messages out before the public.I am here because in this case, Sen. Obama cannot be here. Obviously, he cannot be everywhere. I'm doing this because I am a citizen, too, who cares, she said.Predictably, not everyone was impressed with King's three-day swing, however. In a statement to the Conway Daily Sun, McCain for President New England communications director Jeff Grappone of Manchester said Wednesday afternoon, First Barack Obama called for higher energy taxes. Now he is bringing a 70s songwriter to New Hampshire. This is another clear sign that Obama will lead our country back to the Jimmy Carter era.Grappone is a former staffer for Sen. John E. Sununu.