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For the first time since KISS was cool — and you know, THAT was a long time ago — our Democratic presidential primary today will help determine who we'll see on the ticket this fall.

Not since 1976 have we seen this kind of interest. Our state's primary always has been inconsequential because it happens too deep in the political primary season.

But not this time. The race is tight between Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They need North Carolina.

So, the two have crisscrossed the state and employed an old-school, bed-of-a-pickup kind of politics — something we haven't seen in at least a generation — to convince voters to go their way.

That'll end today. But it's been quite the ride.

We've watched blink-and-miss places turn into presidential hot spots and a blacktop parking lot outside our own coliseum turn into a place to be cool last week when Superchunk and Arcade Fire performed a show for Obama.

But maybe this is the best part: We've had a chance to see history unfold up close and grab some gosh-Martha story from our presidential primary season.

For me, it's Paul Raker III.

Last winter, I talked with Raker every time my son played basketball at the Bryan YMCA downtown. Raker was the guy behind the desk.

But a few weeks back, Raker was the guy behind Barack Obama. And his face was huge on the wide screen at Greensboro's Special Events Center.

He sat onstage — in the middle, right over the shoulders of Obama's blue suit — during a town-hall meeting March 26 at Greensboro's War Memorial Auditorium. He got lucky. He knew somebody who knew somebody.

Even after his brush with Obama, Raker won't vote for him today. He's supporting Clinton. He's seen her three times, including last month in Winston-Salem, where he stood for three hours in the sun just to get his picture with her.

But people such as Paul, a Greensboro College senior, aren't punch-drunk about being close to a potential president.

They worry about the future of the country because they feel they have a personal stake. So, they go to stand in the sun, stand in the rain or stand in the back just to get some answers.

That's how I met Summerfield's Gail Dunham. Outside the Carolina Theatre last week in the pouring rain. She came to hear Clinton speak, wearing her button — her Wonder Woman button.

It read, "Hillary to the Rescue."

"There is a lot at stake here," she told me. "It's the picture of America. Will we continue to be this country where all the wealth goes to the top 1 percent, and there will continue to be more unemployed, more home foreclosures and no health insurance? It's not a good situation."

Deborah Compton-Holt knows. She's 56, a grandmother from Greensboro. For the first time in her life, for nearly a year, she didn't have any health insurance. It scared her.

That very predicament gave her the chance to introduce Obama in March at War Memorial Auditorium. By sheer luck, Obama's campaign selected her after she called a few folks she knew about getting a ticket.

She now has health coverage. But her concerns are still there, for herself and the future of her two granddaughters, the little girls who call her "Ma Deb."

Agymah Busch knows, too. He's 41, and he's been unemployed since he got laid off a few years back from Carolina Camera.

He's worked in landscaping. But he couldn't find a full-time job. Now, he's going back to college this fall.

He came to see Obama on a big screen inside the Special Events Center, to see what he calls the "Super Bowl of politics." He'll vote for Obama today, and for the first time, he'll work the polls today.

Yet, he still asks, "Do we really have a say?"

Jane Davis asks that question, too. She saw Hillary's husband, Bill, speak in the very place she works out — the Bryan YMCA.

She considers herself middle class. But it's tough, particularly after two unexpected medical expenses — her third pregnancy and her husband's jaw surgery.

So, like many of us, Davis looks to Washington for answers. And maybe, we'll all find some — after today. Way after today.

If ever.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com.