The Hood in my Hood

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Submitted by momoaizo on Wed, 11/15/2006 - 7:24pm.

(This is usually Anglico's territory, so I apologize in advance if I step on any toes.)

In today's issue of the Pilot, our hometown newspaper, The Hood has an opinion piece titled, "N.C. Democrats Win Broad, Not Deep, Victory". I can just imagine him writing this surrounded by used tissues tossed willy nilly waiting for someone to clean up after him.

He starts in his usual biased manner saying that the voter will get what they deserve by voting in Democrats. He continues with what at first looks like sugar, but ends up tasting like vinegar.

Democrats won an impressively broad victory in state races this year. They outmaneuvered, outraised, outrecruited, and outorganized state Republicans in virtually every competitive district, and indeed in some GOP-leaning districts available in this uniquely Democratic year. Their broad victory, however, was not a deep victory. It was not an earth-shattering, ideological transformation of the political landscape.

You see, the Hood fails, as most Republicans do, to understand that sometimes grassroots and netroots efforts are more powerful than money. (Boo scary, as Tom Suiter would say) Here is where I can imagine the tissues being used because he goes on and on about gerrymandering with districts, if only they had more votes..well here, you read it:

And improbable as it may sound, Republicans today would be in the process of organizing the House and choosing a speaker for the 2007-08 session had they added 9,600 more votes to the majority they won Tuesday -- defeating incumbent Democrats Jim Black, Walter Church, Rick Glazier, Marian McLawhorn, and Alice Graham Underhill, plus electing or re-electing Republicans Russell Capps, Mark Hollo, Tim McNeil, and Willie Ray Starling. That would have yielded a 61-59 GOP edge. ~ Even in the Senate, where a 2003 gerrymander made the political lay of the land less favorable to the GOP, the addition of fewer than 7,700 votes -- or about four-tenths of 1 percent of the total votes cast statewide -- would have give Republicans a strong 24-seat minority stake in the 50-seat chamber, by saving or electing Republicans David Blust, Hugh Webster, and Keith Presnell while defeating R.C. Soles and Walter Dalton.

Yeah, you noticed them too, didn't you.

He sort of qualifies the Democrats win by saying that they weren't won by a flip of a quarter. Then he starts with the tissue thing again by asserting that all the Dems did was convince a few people in key areas that our "ideas and leadership" would be better than that of the Republicans.

He ends his discourse with a reminder:

Once the Democratic giddiness fades, legislative leaders will recognize that a number of the seats they just won -- in places like mountain counties and the Raleigh suburbs -- remain Republican-leaning areas. These are not just additional reliable votes for whatever policy prescriptions would be popular in, say, Chapel Hill.

Democratic leaders can't afford to rely on these newcomers to pass tax increases, new social programs, or other measures that will be difficult to sell to right-leaning voters in 2008. Remember that in 1994, a national sweep brought Republicans a number of seats that would prove impossible to defend in the more "normal" election year of 1996.

I suspect Democratic leaders don't need that reminder -- particularly if Raleigh's Dan Blue manages to win another turn as House Speaker. He's been through all this before

This seems like a perfect example of what Republicans fail to see, this election was about sending Bush, the Rubberstamp Congress and the Party of Greed a message.

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Hey Momo!

Submitted by James Protzman on Wed, 11/15/2006 - 7:58pm.

We need to get together and take this guy out of circulation.

Of all the columnists available, why on earth does the Pilot run pieces by this clown? His organization has been thoroughly discredited as being full of crap in so many areas. Just read the story by Greg Flynn today on mercury poisoning. The Puppets are not just dangerous, they're delusional.

Plus they got trounced to badly that all Hood can do is come up with tired old myths about what might have been.

Shame on the Pilot for continuing to run this drivel.

Agree, Agree and Agree A

Submitted by momoaizo on Wed, 11/15/2006 - 8:16pm.

Although the editor, Steve Bouser is pretty progressive, the publisher, Woronoff is very conservative. Hubby tells me that Moore county has traditionally been Republican, but that was when Reps had real values. Now, they vote Republican because they always have. With the influx of retirees from the north...well let's just say that the Pilot is targeting their audience. Most of their recommended candidates were Republicans except for Galloway who ran against the puppet Boylan. But, they get all kinds of lte's claiming that they are part of the "liberal" media. Frankly, I think that most here would only be happy if all Dems were silenced.

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

How is the Democratic victory not deep?

Submitted by TarGator on Wed, 11/15/2006 - 10:00pm.

We gained in the US Senate; we gained in the US House; we gained in governors; we gained in state houses; we even gained one seat on Wake County's board of commissioners (incidently by the one candidate that answered my questions and was posted about on BlueNC). How is this not deep? Does Hood want the Democrats also to win elections in the Locke foundation before he acknowledges that they had a "deep" victory.

Hood's column

Submitted by gregflynn on Thu, 11/16/2006 - 6:46am.

Hood's column is syndicated in several small papers like the Dunn Daily Record, Sanford Herald and online. It's a regular feed they can't resist. Venues like these and the Pilot are "uncontested seats".

Uncontested my a$$.

Submitted by Linda on Thu, 11/16/2006 - 8:40am.

Just for the record, the Pilot, which is located in Moore County home of the Hairdresser and Richard Morgan (who claims his subpeona is politically motivated - can you beleive it??).,In 2006, while the Democratic Party did not field a full ticket, we had Democrats running in nearly every important race.

In the NC-06 US House Race, Rory Blake, who took nearly 36% of the vote, despite one of the other democratic county chairs in the district telling him to stay out of his county, despite a misprinted sample ballot in Guilford county that had Coble printed *twice* and Blake not on there at all, and despite DINOs in my own county party executive committee questioning Rory at every turn about "where do you really live?" (He has a home in Carthage.) Out of all of District 6, Moore County delivered the highest percentage of votes to Rory Blake.

We had a Democrat running in US Senate seat NC district 22 - Abraham Oudeh, who ran a great campaign.

We had the district 54 for NC House with Joe Hackney (who as far as I know didn't bother to show his face in the small part of Moore County he represents)He won handily.

In the district 52 race, we had the weird and interesting three-way (aren't three-ways always interesting) between Boylan, Shaver, and Galloway. Hindsight is always 20/20, but I believe that had Galloway run as a Democrat, without the splitter of Shaver, he would have handily taken the seat from Boylan. We campaigned hard for Galloway. Boylan would see me coming and almost roll his eyes because he knew I would have questions for him that he'd need his daughter (who is quite bright) to answer. You will hear from Galloway again - He's a terrific candidate. Nearly perfect. I believe you'll see him solidly in the D column where he belongs.

There were three county commissioners races, and two were decided in the primary, because only one had a Democrat willing to step up and run. Her name is Terry Cameron Marquez. Out of all the Democrats running, she received the most votes of any Democrat on the ballot in the County. Why? Because The Pilot called her "token opposition" in the spring and it pissed her off. So she started campaigning then. She used the canvass, canvass, canvass, strategy. She was eveywhere. She whipped her opponent, Jimmy Melton, in the only forum in which they faced each other. The reason he won? My firm belief is straight ticket voting.

In the non-partisan races, we won two school board seats, and every judge that we put on our voting guide. I was proud to be a Democrat from Moore County at the end of Election Night. (In the interest of disclosure, I am an officer with the County Party.)

We might be seen as weak by some, but we are buidling, we are pulling in younger, more progressive Dems all the time, and we are not waiting 6 months to start fielding new candidates for next time.

Unconstested my a$$.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Ghandi

I think he meant

Submitted by James Protzman on Thu, 11/16/2006 - 8:52am.

uncontested newspaper pages where Puppet-o-pinion gets picked up because its free - and there's no well organized content to compete with it.

Yes

Submitted by gregflynn on Thu, 11/16/2006 - 9:11am.

Thanks A, I was writing my response when I had to step away from the 'puter.

Chris Fitzsimon can't be expected to do all the heavy lifting but deserves our support for doing so. The John Locke Foundation has a stable of people who write this stuff by the yard and straight-pipe it directly to content hungry outlets.

In the national arena the Center for American Progress was set up to counter the spew from right-wing stink-tanks. We've proven BlueNC.com can get attention. Time to do battle in the Op-Ed arena.

Galloway

Submitted by SPLib on Thu, 11/16/2006 - 5:12pm.

I am sorry, but I think Gerald lost because he had been a Dem until he switched to UNA and the switch was well publicized. He was unquestionably the best candidate, but had he somehow run as a DEM, he would have lost even worse. As much as the pro-Morgan crowd wanted to stop Boylan, I don't think they could have stomached voting for a Dem, especially with ex-Rep Shaver as an option. All candidates being of equal reputation, history, and character, Dem's don't have much of a chance in Moore County.

As it stands now, we get to have Boylan up in Raleigh. Oh what power he'll have between his "bought" reputation and the fact that the majority of voters felt he was NOT the best candidate.

Actually

Submitted by Linda on Thu, 11/16/2006 - 10:08pm.

Both Marquez and Blake took more votes than Galloway did. And Galloway took more votes than Shaver did. Frankly, Galloway was a much more charismatic candidate, and could have done very well had there been party support from the beginning. I wish it had been other than it was; I wish he had been willing to run as a Democrat in the primary.

My reasoning that he would have won had he run as a Democrat is that we might have been able to attract the attention of the state party and had assistance from them in marketing such a good candidate. As it was, Gerald had to serve 2, or 3, masters, and that doesn't help.

That's why I think Robert's 100 County Strategy is so crucial. We need to have Democrats running for every open seat, and we have to show those candidates that the local Democratic party is willing and ready to support those candidates.

As for Boylan, I agree, I think there are few within the borders of Moore County would ever thought that Boylan was the best candidate. Unfortunately, money talks. I take comfort in the fact that as a freshman lawmaker, he will have very little power, and plan to do my best to educate him about the real issues that affect Moore County rather than the fringe issues he continually referred to in his stump speeches. Now that he's going to be our representative, I'm going to hold him to his responsibilities. Or try to, any way.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Ghandi