CBS News features response from area residents
ELYRIA — Mark and Kristen Craig’s family room Wednesday night looked like a Super Bowl party.
There was soda, snacks, guests and the big event on TV — but it wasn’t a football game that had everyone’s attention.
The Craigs’ home was the setting for a live Webcast on www.cbsnews.com immediately following President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address.
Mark Craig, an independent Elyria city councilman representing the city’s 4th Ward, Elyria Republican Party chairman Ray Noble and Doris Young, a Democrat who owns Great Lakes Truck Driving School in Columbia Township, were interviewed for the Webcast by CBS News anchor Katie Couric.
CBS chose to spotlight Elyria after President Obama’s visit to the area last week.
Mark Craig e-mailed his wife Tuesday afternoon letting her know that their home would be in the national spotlight.
“I said, ‘Sure, why not?’ ” Kristen Craig said. “Then I cleaned like a madwoman. This is usually the kids’ play area, so I spent most of my time shoveling toys out of here.”
Mark Craig, Young and Noble all seemed disgusted by an interview that preceded theirs, where Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., traded barbs so contentiously that Couric had to use her best “Stop that right now, boys!” mom voice to end the interview.
“There’s no bipartisanship,” Noble said. “They’re like kids in a sandbox.”
Couric said in the lead-in to her interview with Noble, Craig and Young that it was a desire to hear from “real people” instead of Washington partisans that brought the Webcast to Elyria.
Noble pulled no punches, describing himself as “frustrated” and “disgusted” with Obama’s speech. “When he took office, he said there’d be change,” Noble said. “There’s no change.”
Still, when asked by Couric to give a grade to Obama’s speech, Noble gave the president a B-minus for his eloquence.
Young gave the president a B-minus, too. She liked the president’s idea of taking the money paid back by the bailed-out banks and giving it to smaller community banks to extend credit to small businesses like her own.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” she said. “Money has to get to small business owners, and this puts the bailout money back into the private sector.”
Mark Craig gave the speech a B-plus.
“We’re making progress,” Craig said.
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