A CNN-Time poll taken Sept. 14-16 surprisingly showed only a 1 percent spread in North Carolina between McCain, with 48 percent, and Obama, with 47 percent, and CNN wanted a segment on the trends here.

Stone said she came to be asked for the national interview after her producer for &uot;The Pam Stone Show,&uot; which airs Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 107.9 FM The Link, found himself in the same restaurant with a producer from CNN while attending a radio convention out west Wednesday.

&dquo;The CNN producer was complaining that he could not find a liberal talk show host anywhere in North Carolina,&dquo; Stone said. &dquo;People had told him just to give up. He wouldn&squo;t find one.&dquo;

Well, that is, until Stone&squo;s producer told him about Pam, a definite Obama supporter and talk show host. Stone got the call Wednesday night and couldn&squo;t sleep a wink, going over and over all the points she would like to make to explain Obama&squo;s popularity here, from energy policy to health care.

She was scheduled for 8:25 a.m. and CNN sent a limousine to her Campobello farm early Thursday morning, but the driver underestimated the travel time and traffic. Sweating bullets, Pam dashed into the WYFF-TV station in Greenville, S.C. at about 8:23. The sound technicians put a microphone on her and an earpiece. The earpiece was dead.

After a moment of panic, the word came back from CNN headquarters that the segment would bump eight minutes to 8:35.

When it finally came her turn to talk live with news anchor Kyra Phillips, Stone said all her nervousness passed, she felt calm and &dquo;hit a home run.&dquo;

&dquo;Bush won this State in 2004 by 12 percent,&dquo; Stone said, recalling the interview a short while later. &dquo;I said that people were unhappy then, but afraid to &squo;change presidents in the middle of a war.&squo; (Like the freakin&squo; war was going to be over in four years! They were going to have to have a new president come in, anyway, and finish it off&ellip;.)

&dquo;Then I said, what&squo;s going on now is the Economy, the Economy the Economy, as well as healthcare, which is related to the economy. Where I live, people are doing pretty well if they are making 30k a year, before taxes, and with health insurance costing a minumum of 12k for a family of four (with no pre-existing conditions). How the hell can they afford it?

&dquo;All McCain is doing is offering tax credits. Well, if you don&squo;t earn enough to be able to afford the health insurance in the first place, you ain&squo;t gettin&squo; any tax credits. People&squo;s wages have been stagnant for years while energy is driving everything up around them and they are scared and they are not making it.

&dquo;Furthermore, I told CNN that while their latest poll showed a statistical dead heat between the two, I believed Obama to have the edge in that polls do not reflect first time voters or those with cell phones, so the enormously energized youth vote isn&squo;t even being included and I believe they will turn out in droves and give the state to Obama.&dquo;

Having said all that, in a three-minute segment, Stone headed on home to the farm. When she got home, she found her computer jammmed with emails from around the country.

&dquo;I want you to know how refreshing it is to hear someone talk about the reality of why so many Americans are &squo;sick and tired&squo; of the same old Washington nonsense,&dquo; one North Carolinian wrote. &dquo;I am proud to listen to your show and to know that there are a lot of intelligent &squo;liberals&squo; out there who aren&squo;t afraid to stand up and say what needs to be said.&dquo;

&dquo;I have been a big fan of yours for years…since before Coach…,&dquo; another wrote. &dquo;I saw you on CNN today and realized what I had been missing since that show went off of the air.&bsp; Unfortunately, I live in Columbus, Ohio with no affiliate stations.&dquo;

&dquo;When you said (on CNN) that you hosted a liberal talk show in the Upstate, I was stunned,&dquo; wrote another. &dquo;There is no platform for Democrats in the upstate. I have to listen to WORD every day until my blood pressure rises and I can&squo;t take it anymore. I am an independent who leans to the left most of the time and some of the talking heads on that station claim to be independent but constantly bash dems and praise the &squo;right&squo;!&dquo;

Stone says her current Saturday radio show is comedy, but her listeners know where she stands.

&dquo;We&squo;re first and foremost comedy, but I do very biting headlines,&dquo; she says, &dquo;and one of the guys on my show is Libertarian, so it&squo;s a great balance.&dquo;

Of course, a few of her disapproving listeners kindly promise to &dquo;pray for her,&dquo; while some wackier ones remind her that Obama is a member of a terrorist sleeper cell. But she says she responds to such nonsense with nonsense, as a comedienne.

&dquo;I tell them, &squo;Yeah, well John McCain is a member of the Keating Five and he eats baby kittens!&squo;&dquo;

Overall, CNN reports that Barack Obama appears to be regaining his summer edge over John McCain according to the latest CNN poll of polls, which shows a swing of four points in the Illinois senator&squo;s favor in just over a week.

With less than seven weeks remaining until voters weigh in at the polls, Obama now holds a two point lead over McCain (47 percent to 45 percent), according to CNN&squo;s average of several recent national polls. Eight percent still remain undecided.