demondeac's blog

"Which Swing States Matters" [sic] was the title of a recent DKos post. My answer? North Carolina!

Saturday night’s “Road to a Blue November” Gala, part of the what was the Forsyth County Democratic party’s “largest and most successful fundraiser in years” in the words of organizer Harold Kennedy, featured keynote speeches from gubernatorial candidates Richard Moore and Beverly Perdue, but the energetic crowd of more than 400 local party members, assorted office holders, and office seekers of all stripes that filled the Embassy Suites ballroom in downtown Winston-Salem seemed most excited about the prospects of sweeping success in November. The Forsyth County Democrats are, in the words made famous by Barack Obama, "Fired up and ready to go!"

Read more for quotes from participants, speeches, and other signs along the "Road to a Blue November."

The Iredell County Democratic party and the Western Democratic Party Task Force will sponsor a forum tomorrow night, Thursday, July 12 at the Iredell Public Library, 6:30 p.m.

You (and all) are invited to attend, but you are also hereby invited to help and participate here in the comments. I am among those tasked with speaking to the difficult question of how best to "Fight Foxx" and build a Democratic majority in the Fifth District. But I do not have anything close to your collective expertise.

Below the fold you will find more details about the forum as well as the questions posed to the participants. Help me answer these tough questions!

Tomorrow night, March 20 at 7p.m., at Wake Forest University Tom Schaller will debate Bob Moser on the question of the Democratic Party's strategy towards the South. The debate will be held in Room 1312 of the Worrell Professional Center and respondents include yours truly and Delmas Parker, second vice chair of the NC Democratic Party, along with David Coates, politics professor at Wake Forest.

This debate's genesis was a work of BlueNC and the blogosphere in more ways than one. Read the rest for more on the debate and on the blogosphere's role.

Although it has been "known" in Winston-Salem circles since October, Dan Besse, city council member, has made his bid for Lt. Governor official.

His web site actually has fairly detailed information (but someone needs to help clean up the fonts).

He introduces himself this way:

I believe that North Carolina needs and deserves leadership committed to the ideals of economic and educational opportunity for all, and conservation of the clean air, water, and land on which we all depend.

I have pursued these aims through over two decades of professional work and public service--as a public interest attorney for poor families; as an effective state-level advocate for clean air and water and public health; and as an elected local and regional leader.

I am not a part of his campaign, but as someone who ran for office in Forsyth County this fall, I can share my perspective below the fold.

Today's post on the importance of local blogs at MyDD and at BlueNC is one I heartily second.

I got into active politics via the influence of DailyKos and Howard Dean's urging to rebuild the party from the ground up.

I'm now a candidate in one of the nation's largest and strangest partisan school board races (130,00 registered voters in my school board "district").

I've come a long way since my "greatest hit" diary at DKos (also front paged at MyDD), Party Takeover Underway, but am also discovering how much further there is to go.

Yesterday at Daily Kos there was one of those "best ideas ever." The author called it "Open Source Campaigns." It will probably (hopefully?) pick up traction and be prominent there and at MyDD.

No reason BlueNC and NC in general should not be at the leading edge.

The idea is simple: organize the skills of the netroots folks into a clearinghouse for helping candidates with tasks that do not need on-site volunteers: web site design, graphic arts, data analysis and database management, etc.

As a first-time candidate in a local election (Forsyth County Board of Education) I can attest to the need for such services with my website effort and in other areas. Something along the lines of what was described by the diarist would be a huge force-multiplier.