In 2004, for voters in the GOP stronghold of Upper Arlington in suburban Columbus, Ohio, the reasons they got out to vote for President Bush ranged from social issues to recent signs of an improving economy.

2008 interview of Upper Arlington voters about the U.S. presidential race

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

We'll be hearing from voters all over the country in our program today, and first this hour to Ohio. NPR's David Greene has been hanging out at polling stations in that pivotal swing state.

DAVID GREENE: Ertha Cuinn(ph) cast her vote in an African Methodist Episcopal church in Columbus. She told me a bit of her story.

Ms. ERTHA CUINN: I was born in the middle of a cotton field.

GREENE: That cotton field was in Arkansas, and Ertha said she faced a lot of prejudice growing up in the South. Today she said she came to this church in Columbus and voted for Barack Obama because he's the first African-American to get this far in politics.

Ms. CUINN: I'm 79 years old, and we have not had a fair break since I've been in this world. And we needed that. That's why I voted for him. Even if he doesn't win, I'm still proud that he got as far as he did.

GREENE: Do you think racism is something that will start to evaporate if...

Ms. CUINN: No.

GREENE: If he's in office.

Ms. CUINN: It'd never. You got people who hate. You got people who hate, and they hate black people. Why? I don't know, because I'm beautiful.

Ms. STEPHANIE CARTWRIGHT(ph): This is a fairly conservative community, and I voted for Barack Obama.

GREENE: That's Stephanie Cartwright. We caught her after voting in Upper Arlington, a wealthy suburb of Columbus. She said she trusts Obama to make sure less fortunate Americans survive these tough economic times, even if Obama would raise her taxes.

Ms. CARTWRIGHT: I'm in the over 250 bracket. And I'm more than willing to share that.

GREENE: Suburbs like this one outside Columbus have been a battleground in this presidential race, and voters said the choice wasn't easy.

Ms. CAROL RICCO(ph): It was a rough decision, a rough decision on my part.

GREENE: Carol Ricco went for McCain. She said he and his Republican allies raised a lot of questions about what she called Obama's associations.

Ms. RICCO: Some of these smear tactics that we were forced to listen to about Obama were really weighing heavily on my mind.

GREENE: You call them smear, but do you think they were fair attacks from the McCain side or...

Mr. RICCO: Yes. Yes, I do. I do. Everything has to come out.

GREENE: Up the street, I met Harry Griffith(ph). He's a Republican who backed both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. This time, McCain got his vote. He said he's worried Obama just lacks the experience.

Mr. HARRY GRIFFITH: I think he needs to dig a few more trenches. And you look at Senator John McCain, and I'm - and don't get me wrong, I'm not some crazy Republican, but he's done just about everything for this country but die for it, and we all know that.

GREENE: But Harry said if his man doesn't win, he'd give Obama a chance.

Mr. GRIFFITH: Hopefully, he'll go in there, and he'll do his job, and he'll make this better. And same with John McCain. There's just nothing worse than a sore loser because this is the greatest day in America.

GREENE: David Greene, NPR News, Columbus.

The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act seeks to improve the nation's schools and make them more accountable. Yet some school officials, especially in rural areas, say the federal mandate is inflexible and their school systems cannot meet the demands.

Several states are considering opting out of federal funds just to escape the federal mandate. Talk of the Nation takes a new look at President Bush's efforts to make schools accountable.

Wickliffe Elementary in Upper Arlington, Ohio

Dick Cheney worked back channels and circumvented the president like no other in U.S. history.

Nina Totenberg's excellent reporting is refreshing and clear. Connected the dots about past 8 years.

"In the first term, Cheney reshaped national security law, expanded the prerogatives of the executive branch and orchestrated secret, warrantless domestic surveillance, circumventing a court set up by Congress specifically to oversee such surveillance. He presented the president with options that led to a shutdown of negotiations with North Korea, and played a major role in persuading President Bush to go to war against Iraq.

On the domestic front, he screened potential Supreme Court nominees, presided over the budget, led the selection of personnel from Cabinet officers to key lower-level positions. Without the president's knowledge, he engineered the rewriting of the president's tax bill so it included a capital gains tax break that the president had initially rejected. With the president's knowledge, he led an industry-friendly revamping of energy and environmental regulations."

Excellent story on NPR about the continued vitality of Obama's grassroots movement and its future.

Many UAPAers fall in the "supervolunteer" category :-)

But the most important number of all may be the tens of thousands of what the campaign called "supervolunteers," people who worked sometimes 40 to 50 hours a week for Obama.

"We've run sort of a giant experiment here in volunteer management, and we want to take a look at the lessons learned from that," says Jon Carson, national field director for the campaign. He's one of the people trying to figure out what to do with the grass-roots movement Obama created.

"As President-elect Obama takes office and a legislative agenda is put together," Carson says, "I think in the same way these incredible volunteers that we had carried his message throughout the campaign, talking to their neighbors about why he was the right candidate to bring the change that we needed — I can see them, in a similar way, explaining a health care proposal, explaining whatever issue it is."

The story's byline: "Barack Obama must be as innovative in using supporters' power now as he was during the campaign."