Dalton meets the Mendoza Line - or why batting .166 just isn't going to get it done
Today I, and I am sure many of you, received an email from Senator Walter Dalton, touting his support among "prominent African American leaders from all across the state." Dalton received the endorsement of the George C. Simkins Committee PAC in Greensboro and the members of the Senate Black Caucus. I congratulate Senator Dalton on this accomplishment. Any baseball player will tell you, however, that going 1 for 6 will lose you your spot in the Show.
With years of effort and dedication to not only the pretty talk, but the actual hard facts and effort of working for equality of opportunity and racial progress, Hampton Dellinger put himself in a position to receive 5 of the 6 major endorsements from African American political organizations across the state. The High Point Black Leadership Roundtable, the Durham Committee for the Affairs of Black People, the Raleigh-Wake Citizens Association, the Eastern North Carolina Civic League, and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Black Political Caucus have all endorsed Hampton Dellinger for Lieutenant Governor in this campaign.
Those endorsements represent the support of grassroots activists in every part of North Carolina. They represent hundreds of poll workers, local community leaders, thousands of voters, marchers, foot-soldiers in the struggle for racial harmony. These groups recognized what many see in Hampton - a lifetime of diligent effort for equality of opportunity and justice, and a unique talent capable of bringing these issues to the forefront of North Carolina politics in an inclusive and insightful way.
Senator Dalton's email is interesting, in that he chooses to stress the endorsements of prominent politicians - and to his credit, his colleagues in the Senate have backed him. But there is a difference between garnering the support of colleagues (whose earmarks and projects you have funded as the man in charge of the Senate budget) and garnering the support and votes of the grassroots activists that showed up to meetings across North Carolina over the last two months and threw their support overwhelmingly to Hampton Dellinger.
One list of endorsements carries the whiff of machine politics, of the unfortunately regressive Senate Budgets that the Senator played a large role in passing. The other list of endorsements rides a new breeze of open politics, grassroots effort and walking the talk.
These battling endorsements really help define this race, in a way. On the one hand, you have prominent political leaders, engaged in mutual back scratching exercises. On the other, you have the folks in the trenches, thanking a guy who has been in the trenches with them, from the NAACP office in Baltimore to HK on J.
I know from speaking with him that Hampton Dellinger appreciates the support of prominent folks like Dr. John Hope Franklin, Branford Marsalis, former US Attorney Janice McKenzie Cole, Durham Mayor Bill Bell and others. But he is humbled by the support of people whose names you don't recognize. People who will show up tomorrow morning at early voting locations across the state to hold signs and greet their neighbors.
I hope you will join them, and me, in supporting Hampton Dellinger for Lieutenant Governor.
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"Hampton Dellinger would make a great Lieutenant Governor." - Al Gore.
An excellent endorsement
Happy to frontpage this, Dr. Frank. Thank you.
thank you
You are a man of your word, Anglico.
"Hampton Dellinger would make a great Lieutenant Governor." - Al Gore.
The Mendoza Line defined
Wikipedia - The Mendoza Line is an informal term used in baseball for when a position player's batting average falls below the boundary between extremely poor and merely below-average offensive production, or the offensive threshold below which players' presence in the Major Leagues cannot be justified despite their defensive abilities. It is often used to characterize a batting average of below .200.
The term is named for former shortstop Mario Mendoza, who had a career batting average of .215 and actually hit .198 in the 1979 season
"Hampton Dellinger would make a great Lieutenant Governor." - Al Gore.
You proved beautifully that you can be hard on your opponent
while also being honest, fair and sincere. With all the vitriol afoot, what you wrote here made me proud to be a Dellinger supporter and to be part of this online community. It goes to show that you can point out the flaws in another candidate (or in the way he or she is running their campaign)in a fair, measured way. You demonstrated that here. Kudos to you, Dr. Frank.
Tacking this on: Pittenger real estate scandals?
I agree Dalton is trying to stretch one endorsement across the whole state, and I don't think it's going to reach.
Also, does anyone know anything about these Robert Pittenger real estate scandals? It's lt. gov and NC Senate shenanigans related, so maybe not too far off the subject. This stuff comes from Village Scribe Online, which is a really good local Charlotte blog. Charlotte is extremely far out of my orbit, so I'm just discovering these things as an outsider:
http://www.villagescribeonline.com/?p=459
And there's apparently another mini-scandal about the Weddington water tower. There must be people out there from Charlotte who know about this. It strikes me that Pittenger is talked about unusually rarely, especially with this stuff floating around out there.