NC Governor 2008

Please join us this evening for a live-blog chat with retired Colonel Dennis Nielsen at 7:00 p.m. Colonel Nielsen joined us in Chapel Hill for our blogger bash on Sunday. He is running a grassroots campaign without taking any special interest money or soliciting contributions from individuals. He simply wants his voice to be heard. Here is our chance to listen.

Leave your questions on this thread and join us again this evening.

While the Primary race between Clinton and Obama has gotten pretty vicious lately, I was always convinced it's nothing compared to the stuff Republicans would be spewing around the general election. Turns out I didn't have to wait that long, thanks to the NC GOP and their head witch, Linda Daves.
Even John McCain and the Republican National Congress declared today how deplorable the latest stunt of the NC repugs is.

Seven weeks ago I imagined that North Carolina and BlueNC would have broken exciting new ground by now. We were going to transform public engagement in statewide campaigns so that any citizen in North Carolina could ask any candidate the questions that matter most.

As some of you will remember, I invited both Richard Moore and Beverly Perdue to join us for the first-ever virtual gubernatorial debate, and both candidates enthusiastically agreed. All we needed to do was find an hour over the course of two months where they would both be available at the same time. I regret to report that no such hour has been found.

For the past couple of years I have been drawn to examine the undue influence of money in State politics, including the ability of corporations to direct unlimited sums of money to 527 committees and to non-profit foundations that are associated with politicians or engage in activities that support their positions. In 2005 the News & Observer called out Richard Moore for direct solicitation of financial companies for his North Carolina Fiscal Literacy Foundation:

The treasurer ought to know better than to solicit contributions for a nonprofit foundation of his creation from money managers who do business with the state, or who want a piece of that business.
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It's just a bad practice. Moore should stop it.

He may have stopped it, it's not clear. The Foundation has never listed its donors.

Here's what scares me most about Hillary Clinton.

Let's say she wins the Democratic nomination. Let's even assume that she could win the general election (probably by carrying my home state of Ohio.)

What is her impact on our elections in North Carolina?

I'm afraid that she would have negative coattails that could have disastrous results for down-ticket races in our great state.

I'm surprised that BlueNC passed up two big governor stories from Monday ... or maybe I should just assume that everyone on BlueNC reads Under the Beckwith as well. Either way, Richard Moore is calling on NC Democrats to rename this weekend's Vance-Aycock dinner. From MSNBC:
Moore said Aycock focused his campaign on efforts to disenfranchise black voters, and his victory fostered Jim Crow laws throughout the South.A group of conservative Republicans said last month it planned to protest on Saturday and pay for a television ad to air that night blaming Aycock and his speeches for events leading to the riots in what was then North Carolina's largest city.Last year, a state panel concluded that by murdering and terrorizing blacks, white supremacists were able to overthrow government officials in New Hanover County at gunpoint in the only recorded coup d'etat in U.S. history.

From the Fayetteville paper

Richard Moore, state treasurer and Democratic candidate for governor, said his campaign goal is “to be as gentlemanly as my mother expects me to be” and to talk about substantive issues. Given last week’s exchange with Moore’s likely Democratic opponent — Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue — one wonders what his mother thinks.

The fun has begun. This is why I wont be touching this race.

I did a quick search tonight, in the hope that our candidates for governor have grown up a little. I was thrilled to see they hadnt.

Still no website for Bev Perdue.

Richard Moore's doesnt look like it has been updated since he ran for Treasurer THREE YEARS AGO.

I dont need them to become bloggers. I would love to see them actually engage people who cant write 1000 dollar checks, but hey, you cant always get what you want.

I have visions of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend running through my head right now. Please tell me this will all work out.