????這種討論顯然適合奧巴馬總統的連任競選。在這樣的背景下，6,000名代表和約3萬名隨從人員將來到夏洛特，出席9月初舉行的民主黨全國代表大會（the Democratic National Convention）。2008年，奧巴馬在該州僅獲得了1.4萬張選票，很難想象他的連任之路可以繞過北卡羅來納州。他有多么需要這個州？非常需要，足以使他愿意在美國銀行體育場（Bank of America Stadium）里發表提名演講。

????考慮到奧巴馬總統在大銀行行為問題上偶爾發表的言論，這有些諷刺意味，但夏洛特并不是個特別喜歡冷嘲熱諷的地方。這里的交易氣氛更為濃厚，適合成為一個不抗拒商業的社區。大型折扣零售商家庭一元店（Family Dollar，在財富美國500強企業排行榜上排在第301位）的總部就在馬修斯市，剛好越過夏洛特的城邊。該公司董事長霍華德?萊文寧愿把奧巴馬總統的決定視為和解的象征。“或許他的意思是，我們都需要繼續向前看，不只是夏洛特這座城市，整個國家也是如此。”

????譯者：千牛絮

???This is just the kind of narrative that fits in with President Obama's bid for reelection, and it's against this backdrop that 6,000 delegates and another 30,000 or so hangers-on will descend on Charlotte in early September for the Democratic National Convention. Obama carried the state by a mere 14,000 votes in 2008, and it's hard to imagine a road to his reelection that doesn't run through North Carolina. How much does he need the state? Enough that he's willing to give his acceptance speech at Bank of America Stadium.

????Given the comments that the President occasionally tosses around about the conduct of the big banks, there's some irony in this, but Charlotte isn't a particularly ironic place. It's more transactional, as befits a community without any counterweight to commerce. Howard Levine, the chairman of Family Dollar (No. 301) (FDO), the big discount retailer whose headquarters are just beyond the city limits in Matthews, prefers to see the President's decision as a symbol of reconciliation. "Maybe's he's signaling that we all need to move on as a country, not just the city of Charlotte, but as a country."