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RALEIGH With the health care debate headed toward a showdown on Capitol Hill, the battle is being joined locally at street rallies, in television ads and through phone banks.
Members of Congress, particularly Democratic moderates such as Rep. Bob Etheridge, are facing stepped-up lobbying efforts as President Barack Obama makes a final push for passage of a bill aimed to change the health care system. At the same time, conservative critics are waging a last effort to derail the bill.
In downtown Raleigh on Thursday, the tea party movement and the Democratic Party held dueling lunchtime rallies on opposite street corners outside Etheridge's district office. Signs such as "Obamacare is bad medicine" competed with others such as "Health Care Can't Wait."
Today, Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group opposed to the health care legislation, plans to begin running a $65,000 TV ad campaign in the Raleigh market asking people to call Etheridge and urge him to oppose the bill.
The ad features a woman who had an early mammogram that detected her breast cancer.
"Early detection saved my life," said Tracy Walsh in the ad. "If I had followed the new government guidelines on mammograms, my cancer would have spread undetected, and my chances of survival would have been reduced."
Besides Etheridge, who lives in Lillington, the group is lobbying Democrats Mike McIntyre of Lumberton and Larry Kissell of Biscoe - whose district includes part of Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Union, Anson and Stanly counties.
The group has urged them to continue opposing the bill, said Dallas Woodhouse, Americans for Prosperity's state executive director.
Meanwhile, Organizing for America, an arm of the national Democratic Party, has been conducting phone banks, letter-writing campaigns and other efforts to convince Etheridge and other Democrats to support the president.
Their most recent project, called "The Final March for Reform," is designed to get members of Obama's former campaign organization in North Carolina to volunteer for legislators who support health care.
So far, 284,605 volunteer hours have been pledged for U.S. House members from North Carolina who voted for health care.
The message seems clear: Help the president with health care, and we'll watch your back at election time.
Lindsay Siler, state director of Organizing for America, said she thinks there has been a shift since the town hall meetings of last summer, which were dominated by opponents of the Democratic health care proposals.
She said now she sees little opposition as she travels the state.
"We are packing rooms with people ready to get involved," Siler said. "It doesn't look like it did last August."
Woodhouse dismissed such talk, noting that Republicans are lining up to run for office this year, based in part on health care.
