Obama touts 2008 win in Carolina in pressing supporters to vote

President Obama touted his narrow win in North Carolina in 2008 as evidence that every vote counts in a last-minute, Election Day appeal to supporters.

“Do not think that your vote will not make a difference,” Obama said in an interview with syndicated radio host Michael Baisden. “When we won North Carolina last time, we won it by an average of five votes per precinct, which means that everybody who is listening right now, I know you can find five people who didn’t vote, who have not yet voted.”

{mosads}Obama won the battleground state by a 14,000-vote margin four years ago against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). He was the first Democrat to win the state since Jimmy Carter in 1976. This year, polling has tended to favor Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the state by a narrow margin.

Obama is participating in a series of interviews from Chicago, where he is spending Election Day. Romney, in contrast, will visit supporters in Cleveland and Pittsburgh before ending the night in Boston.

Obama acknowledged people are less excited this cycle. At the same time, he insisted he was inspired by the determination of his supporters.

“In 2008, everybody was excited. It was new. It was fresh,” he said. “This time, what you get a sense of is people determined to keep moving the country forward to make sure we don’t go back to the failed policies of the past. To see people waiting in line as long as they are and not being upset about it — they are just like, ‘OK, this is what I’m going to do’ — is really inspiring.”

Obama appealed to his supporters by warning that if he failed to get reelected, his signature healthcare law would be undone and Medicare would be turned into a voucher program.