The Truth about State-Wide Judical Campaigns?

INTRODUCTION

In order to understand how I got where I am, it is important to understand where I have been and how events have led me to my present spot. My father was a trial lawyer and a very good one at that. He had gifted speaking abilities and knew how to reach the emotions of jurors.

As a child, I worked in his law office. I talked to his clients. I attended his trials. I can still remember some of his clients’ names or their issues or portions of his closing arguments. I grew early to love the law and wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps as a lawyer.

As I grew older, events changed and I suddenly wanted to be different than my father. Perhaps it was just teenage rebelliousness. Perhaps it was the father of a high school sweetheart who suggested that I did not have the brain power to make it in medical school. Whatever it was, I attended a very well known and well-respected school called Carnegie Mellon University where I majored in Chemistry and Bio-Chemistry as I had planned to attend medical school and become a medical doctor.

Sometime during my senior year and after enduring all types of chemistry classes, medicine had lost its enchantment from me. Nonetheless, I worked in a pharmaceutical plant in West Germany for a summer to see if I might like that. Although I thoroughly enjoyed Germany, I found that medicine was just not for me and that I was not interested in spending the rest of my life working in a laboratory or operating room. And so I returned home and decided to try my hand at law. I was accepted into the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. There I excelled and I realized that this was what I was meant to do.

After I graduated from law school, I spent twelve years working for the trial and appellate courts in Pennsylvania. Although the appellate work was satisfying, all of my family had relocated outside the state and the area was economically depressed. When the time was right, I decided to relocate to North Carolina to be near my family. I have visited friends and family and worked here during the summer for almost thirty (30) years. It was natural that I should move to North Carolina as this state has many things to offer.

And I have always liked the South. As I like to borrow the phrase, “I may be a Yankee by birth, but I am a Southerner by choice.” This is where I came and where I choose to be. It took longer than anticipated, but I ultimately obtained a job at a law firm where I have been ever since.

In working for the court system, I saw what it was like to be a judge and the kind of work that they did. In fact, I was doing the work, albeit under the names of the judges for whom I worked. I was fortunate to be blessed with a writing talent which was recognized by my employers and they permitted me to write. However, I also saw the seamier side of the judicial profession and I am sorry to say that I witnessed a great deal of inappropriate conduct. Several judges in Pennsylvania had been impeached for their behavior, others were not. It left me feeling both revulsion for this kind of misconduct and at the same time wanting to do it under my own name. But I despaired of ever breaking into the system.

After relocating to North Carolina, I met my current husband. I knew that he was involved in politics. On our first date, I bluntly told him that I wanted to be a judge. He told me to forget it as it was not attainable given how political campaigns were run. And so I did.

As I have moved throughout my life, I have come to learn that nothing happens by accident. I was meant to go to law school, not medical school. I was meant to get my first law job in a quiet little town called Somerset. I was meant to move to North Carolina. I was meant to meet my husband. And I was meant to run for office, even though I did not know it at the time.

While working at the law firm for several years, one of the junior partners came into my office one day and announced his decision to run for Congress. He asked me for some advice. By this time, my husband had moved to North Carolina to be with me. Again, knowing of his political experience, I suggested that the partner meet with him. I arranged a meeting between the two. The next thing I knew, my husband was coordinating the junior partner’s political campaign.

I threw my energies into the junior partner’s campaign and attended events on the campaign trail. At these events, I was able to see other candidates for office, including judicial seats. One young woman, who barely had been out of law school for six years, was running for judge. She had no other real qualifications other than that she had worked in the prosecutor’s office and that she was related to someone who was a well-known legislator. I thought to myself, if she can run for district court judge, I can run for office as well, given my significantly longer legal history. And so I filed away the information.

The primary was held late that year because of the battles over the re-districting of our state. Unfortunately, the junior partner that I had supported did not prevail. He was one of four candidates that ran for that seat in the Republican primary. Although I did not realize it at the time, there had been an evolving strategy among the NCGOP and the Republican Party to avoid primaries, a strategy which had emerged after President Bush (Bush 43) took office.

The party had chosen its designated candidate and they were to run in the fall against their Democratic opponent. Suffice it to say that the junior partner was not the chosen candidate and dared to run anyway. He ran up against what I was later to encounter, sabotage and dirty tricks perpetrated by his very own party. It should come as no surprise that he did not prevail against the chosen candidate. It is unfortunate, because if anyone had a chance to win in a presidential year, it is my opinion that he had the best chance to defeat the incumbent.

But it was not to be. The campaign staff, consisting mostly of young people, was demoralized. And then came yet another unexpected incident – one of the justices on our state Supreme Court resigned his seat to take a position at a law center.

After the announcement, I reminded my husband of the things that had occurred on the campaign trail and how individuals, infinitely less qualified than I was, were running for judicial office. I reminded him of how it takes two (2) years to run for office and that we should study the composition of the judicial races to see who best to challenge or what was available. I was thinking small, like a district court judgeship. My husband, however, was aware of the announcement regarding an opening on our Supreme Court and after giving it some thought, he said "you will run for office, but it will be for the Supreme Court seat."

I put my name on the ballot, but I did it almost as a lark. The former chair of the NC GOP had once told me that women have an excellent chance of being elected just by sticking their name on the ballot. Part of me wanted to see if this were true. However, any thoughts of just putting my name on the ballot quickly evaporated. The campaign became very serious and I worked hard at it.

After entering the race, the Republican candidates were invited to speak before the NC GOP Executive Committee. Remember what I said about sabotage and dirty tricks and avoiding primaries? The fix was in but I was still unaware of it as of yet. When I arrived, I realized that the NC GOP already had chosen its designated candidate and that he had been campaigning for several months. It was a dog-and-pony show just for him. And because I did not know any better and had thrown my hat in the ring, the dirty tricks started, from emails and comments full of hatred and anger, to phone call campaigns, to tactics that affected my ability to raise funds.

Fortunately, it was a short campaign cycle. The chosen candidate prevailed and, in my opinion, violated the federal Hatch Act to do so.[1] However, when the dust settled, I observed that I had done extremely well. I came in third place, only a few percentage points behind the winner and even fewer points behind the second place candidate. I had no party support and yet I managed to defeat by a large margin the other candidates in the race, some of who were or had been judges. It was a tremendous victory for a relative unknown in such a short timeframe.

I sat back and took stock of it all and decided to try again. I never stopped campaigning. The NC GOP plan of attack and vilification continued unabated even though the 2004 election ceased. To quiet the attacks, I decided to be the first to announce since it was part of the NC GOP strategy that whomever announced first should get the seat. Not that I ever expected it to work! I didn’t, but I decided to take away one of the arguments that they had used in the first campaign.

There also a great deal of uncertainty regarding the chief justice position. People knew that our former chief justice would be reaching mandatory retirement age and that this would be an open seat in 2006, i.e., the seat would not be occupied by any incumbent. That made it attractive. But it still remained to be seen what our governor would do and who he would appoint to fill the slot when the time came. For now, I decided that it would be safer to announce for the soon-to-be-vacated chief justice seat and bide my time.

The parties were having their political conventions and were to choose their respective leaders. Given what I had had to endure at the hands of the NC GOP, I felt that the only way to put an end to their tactics would be to have completely new leadership. Otherwise, there would be no future in remaining registered as a Republican in North Carolina. At the same time, an African-American candidate for congressional office, Vernon Robinson, had done well in the primary only to force a run-off in which he lost. I felt that he would be a good choice to lead the NC GOP in a new direction. And so, when he announced his intent to run for NC GOP chair, I enthusiastically supported him.

I attended the NC GOP convention in May of 2005. In quiet polling of individuals, it was felt that the candidate that I supported had a decent chance, especially after how the designated choice had behaved at a gathering of NC GOP party faithful in Asheville. But the promised support never materialized.

The convention was very poorly attended and those that did manage to attend voted overwhelmingly in favor of the status quo and the designated chair, Ferrell Blount. I still recall him screaming "top-down, top-down, top-down" at the top of his lungs and extolling the virtues of his "top-down" management style in which orders are dictated by the Bush Administration and Art Pope and dutifully carried out here. And I saw how those present treated Mr. Robinson. Had I been treated that way, I would have waited until all the votes were cast, I would have told them off and I never would have returned. However, he did and ran yet again, this time for a different congressional seat which he likewise lost.

By this time, I had firmly made up my mind to leave as the situation was hopeless. The NC GOP was under the control of one very wealthy man named Art Pope and it danced to his tune. It was time for me to go.

But where to? I observed other races in 2004 and I saw that independents and third-party candidates routinely did not fair very well. However, the Democratic Party indicated that it was a "big tent" and that it "welcomed" defectors from the NC GOP. It sounded too good to be true. It was, as notwithstanding their rhetoric and statements on their own website, it was all a sham. In saying this, I do not mean to denigrate or chastise the many fine people that I met while on the campaign trail who are Democrats. And I learned that there are as many flavors of Democrats as there are Republicans. There are pro-life Democrats, Christian Democrats, conservative Democrats, Progressive Democrats, and Thomas Jefferson types of classical liberals. I am not talking about any of these people, but of the tactics used by the NC DP leadership.

Of course, I had yet to realize all of this at the time I made my decision to leave. I felt that my best option would be to join the Democratic Party. I began attending Democratic events and at most places I received an enthusiastic welcome. I supported other Democratic candidates. I felt that I was home at last.

By this time, the retirement of our chief justice was drawing near and the question on everyone’s mind at that time was what would our governor do? In a statement that I had written on my website, I indicated that it might be an extraordinary thing for our governor to appoint the then only current female jurist who was sitting on our court. I stated that the vacancy created by her elevation should be filled by an African American woman. I had met one such woman on the campaign trail in 2004 and I thought that she would be a good choice given what I had seen. To my surprise, he did as I had suggested, albeit he appointed a different African American female than the one I had in mind.

Given that he appointed a female jurist to be the chief justice, I realized that my continued candidacy for that seat would only serve to split the Democratic vote. And the Republican choice was no choice in my view – as an attorney told me privately, "he is a very mean man." I do not know whether he is or is not, but I felt very strongly that this man should be kept off our court if possible. Splitting of the vote would also occur in the seat to which an African American female was appointed.

And so I looked elsewhere, but unfortunately, the choice of available seats was rapidly narrowing. One seat was held by a jurist who was retiring. Unfortunately, candidates for this seat were too numerous. And that meant a primary, which I did not want. Using the process of elimination, that left only one seat, the one that was occupied by an incumbent, Justice Mark Martin.

Justice Mark Martin appeared to be a fine individual and I wondered how I could ever hope to challenge someone like this. He had the right résumé and had made all the right connections. But as I learned more about him, the veneer began to slip away. I saw him for what he really was.

From the end of 2004, I began to receive emails from the emissaries that he used. One message inquired if I was going to run against him. Another extolled his virtues and opined about how well-reasoned his opinions were. I read his opinions and found that he did not author very many decisions, and that those decisions that he did participate in left much to be desired in terms of vindicating constitutional rights. I was uncowed and unintimidated by what I perceived to be thinly veiled threats against me to drop out of the campaign.

When these efforts failed, he stepped up the attacks. I was subjected to frivolous bar complaints, attacks by operatives, threats and intimidation. I and my husband were harassed by the police. The mainstream media was pressed into action. My husband is the subject of a criminal investigation because he engaged in the crime of voting. People were dispatched to the polls on election day and during early voting to continue spreading lies about my alleged mental insanity. Most of all, my professional and personal reputation were destroyed to the point that I doubt that I will be able to work in the legal profession in this state.

All of this Justice Martin was fully aware of. He enabled, encouraged and abetted such tactics. He never sought to denounce or distance himself from this conduct, much as Paul Newby did not distance himself from the same tactics employed by the NC GOP in 2004. He even published the untruths on his website and disseminated falsehoods in his campaign materials.

He even used one of his law school students to persuade me to stop. After what I had been through? It is akin to a gang of hoodlums armed with knives telling a victim, armed with a gun, that he needs to drop his firearm and disarm himself just to make the fight fair. It was absurd. The last straw was for Justice Martin to call on the big-firm lawyers and bar association presidents of this state for help. They responded in a big way.

I firmly believe that he had done polling and did not at all like what he had been hearing. There had been too many stories by me detailing the flaws in his participation in decisions or his questionable campaign expenditures. The ordinary people supported me and knew who I was. But the bar association and big-firm lawyers, who represented the moneyed interests, could not afford to let someone like me gain a seat on the court. They were even willing to break the law and manipulate the election results to prevent me from being elected.

Why? During the campaign, I read a book, which I previously mentioned, called "The Hunt for Confederate Gold." In the book, the villain is played by an FBI agent. In one chapter, he reminisces about advice that he had been given in his younger days by an older agent who was retiring. The then young agent asked the older agent how he should proceed if he wanted to advance his career at the FBI. The older agent gave him a bit of sage advice, which was of course ignored. The piece of advice was this, find a vice by which others in power can control you and make sure that they are aware of it.

You see, I am someone who is without such vices. I don’t gamble, cavort with men, women, boys or girls. I don’t drink. I have nothing going on by which I can be controlled. If elected to be a judge, I would decide a case based on its merits, based on the facts, the parties’ briefs and the law. This the power brokers and their lawyers cannot have. They want someone in place to do their bidding when it needs to be done. Realizing that they could not control me, they put their efforts into making sure that I was stopped, regardless of all costs, regardless of how they had to smear me, regardless of the law, which they deliberately broke, regardless of the vote, which they manipulated. They also could not allow me to succeed, because if I won, there would be others who would run for office. Its about power and control. So the lawyers and those already in power came to Justice Martin’s aid, with the results being predictable and inevitable.

That, in a nutshell is why I decided to run for office and how I campaigned. Are you depressed? Daunted? I did not mean to disillusion you. But if you are going to run for office and dare to try, you must understand fully what you are up against. You must understand the nature of what I have termed as "the beast."

[1] 5 U.S.C. § 7323(a(3).

CHAPTER I – THE BEAST

As Lord Acton once famously commented, "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." He was right. America was meant to represent an escape from the power and corruption that was so prevalent in Europe. Whatever their flaws, and they certainly had them, the founding fathers in America devised an ingenious system to keep the federal government in check, from accumulating too much power in any one person or bureaucracy. The world had never seen its like before and never will again.

Dr. Benjamin Franklin, when asked what kind of government had been devised, is reported to have said "A republic, if you can keep it." He may not have foreseen the marvelous inventions to come like trains, planes and automobiles, but he and the other founders well understood human nature, which has not changed in thousands of years. They knew the avarice and corruption and lust for power that animates men and they sought to restraint it by the careful checks and balances that they devised. As Thomas Jefferson said, “[i]n questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

But as all things change, so it is with America. Not long after the ink was dry on our Constitution, there were various factions that were set in motion to get around it. These were comprised of the early Hamiltonian-mercantilists, like Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln and others. Eventually, slowly, they succeeded and our government has morphed into the behemoth that it is today.

With the ever bigger government came the corresponding aggregation of power and the desire for greater control. And our government is not limited to the descendants of the Federalist Party. It now encompasses both sides of the aisle, subsuming the Jeffersonian Democrat-Republicans, or Democrats for short. It controls both sides, Democrats and Republicans. We see it now in Washington, D.C. We see it now in North Carolina.

Its tentacles have spread to all areas of our life. It controls the mainstream media. For example, three major radio stations here are controlled by the same entity, Curtis Media Group. Think that you will hear real news on any of them? No. You will only hear the Art Pope party line. The same is true of the television shows on Sunday morning on which Art Pope’s employees’ appear. Oh, they will occasionally have a "liberal" voice, like Alan Colmes, but it will never be a true seeker of liberty. The only one that they will let through is one who is controlled.

The same thing occurs with Fox News (I call it Faux News, for that is more often what you get) and the other conglomerates owned by Rupert Murdoch. Don't think that CNN or any of the other mainstream alternatives are immune; they are not. Tune in to any of these and you will get essentially the same story. These are all part and parcel of the same phenomenon or aspect that I have termed "the beast."

The beast fears ordinary people like you and me. If we ever got in office, the beast would lose a little of its power. If a large number of us got there, we would throw the beast out altogether. The beast cannot have that. It must maintain power and control at all costs. That is why it is so pervasive, why it needs to control every aspect of our lives, why it needs to keep us distracted, fighting over class warfare, race, abortion, sexual orientation, gender or some other divisive and polarizing issue, so that we will not join together to fight it.

Oh, if you want to get elected, if that is your ambition, it is easy to do. Just ingratiate yourself with those who are in power, work your way up through party ranks. If you are a lawyer, join your bar association, if not, join a professional association or some other type of social club. Follow the advice of the old FBI agent to have a vice and let others know about it and you will attain office. But don’t think that you will not be controlled and corrupted and become part of the beast. The beast will own you; if it raises you up and it can just as easily cast you back down again. We have our very own example of that in the former speaker of the house in North Carolina, Jim Black. He served in the legislature and rose to be speaker. He recently pled guilty to federal and state offenses and resigned, all over charges relating to corruption.

But if you are that rare someone like me, someone who cannot be controlled, the beast is going to unleash its full fury on you if you dare to challenge its authority and power. You will be the subject of dizzying attacks from the media and receive hate-filled messages from operatives. Attempts will be made to publicly humiliate, intimidate and threaten you. If you are a lawyer, then be especially wary, as fellow members of the bar, who are really part of the beast, will deluge you with frivolous bar and other complaints. The beast will prosecute you or members of your family on trumped-up charges. It will ruin your reputation, disparage you and demean you. The beast will interfere with your ability to earn a living. The beast will even break the law to stop you. All this and more will the beast do to destroy you.

Fortunately, not everyone everywhere is attuned to what is going on. And if you are strong like me, you will manage to survive the onslaught which is coming. Forewarned is forearmed. Be ready.

CHAPTER III – FINANCING

Now that you have decided to run and have come up with a message for your campaign, how are you going to pay for it? Financing proved to be the one of the most problematic aspects of this campaign and it is one which you will have to consider in your own.

When I first threw my name into the ring, no one knew who I was. Although we had judicial financing of elections in North Carolina, this really is a misnomer. It ought to be called the “Judicial Incumbent Protection and Wealth Transfer Act” for that is what it really is. Judicial financing sounds very nice. The people who created it intended only the best, I am sure. However, the system that was devised was set up to keep people like me from ever obtaining office and to keep incumbents in place.

To get judicial financing, a candidate for office must first raise a certain amount of money. In my case, it was $34,000.00, an amount that mostly would have paid for my first campaign if I could have raised that much. I was not the only candidate in that position; there were at least several others who were unable to raise this sum and who were excluded from participation in the system. Also, something just seems plain wrong, especially for those who espouse the “conservative” position. How is taking money from the state for this purpose any different than welfare or any of the other entitlement programs that conservatives love to beat up on? Its nothing more than welfare for people who want to attain office.

To make matters worse, the NC GOP and the state elections board got together to ensure that candidates like me, who were not able to raise the necessary funds, would be prohibited from further fund-raising right before the election, which is the most critical time, as that is when the bulk of the campaign assets are spent. However, those who qualified for judicial financing were not only given funds by the legislature, but could continue and fundraise or even apply for "rescue funds" if needed. In other words, those who really need money could not get it and those who had it could get more. Does this sound fair? Fairness is not what the system is about. From the perspective of keeping incumbents in power, however, it makes perfect sense.

Financing for the first year of the program was through grants from various sources. Unfortunately, the program did not have sufficient funds, so the legislature decided that all attorneys must pay an extra $50.00 for it. This is blatantly unconstitutional. Why must only the attorneys pay? It is true that attorneys are users of the system and often are most intimately acquainted with the judges and justices that inhabit it. However, it was forgotten that attorneys are there, not for themselves, but for their clients. And the judicial voter guide, which is part of this program, benefits all voters in this state. It seems that if this is a proper governmental use of taxpayer dollars, then all should be compelled to pay for it, not just a particular group.

My other objection to financing is on the grounds of compelled speech. I may or may not agree with a particular candidate for office. In fact, I did not agree with several of my opponents who qualified for such funding. Yet, I am forced to fund their campaigns, while they did not have to fund mine. No one should be compelled to fund speech or the candidacy of someone with whom they disagree.

Currently, a federal lawsuit, Jackson v. Leake, No. 05-CV-324, (filed in the US District Court, Eastern District of North Carolina 2005), is pending relating to the judicial financing system. Unfortunately, it is not challenging public financing on the constitutional grounds I raised. Perhaps one day the legislature will act to right these wrongs of its own accord. However, I hope that some enterprising lawyer or law firm will file a lawsuit challenging it.

Faced with the inability to raise funds in such a short campaign cycle and the restrictions placed on fund-raising by our state elections board, I quickly surmised that the process was rigged to benefit incumbents and that I would not be a participant in such a system. I also had my slogan to consider – where would I be if I used public financing? I could not very well say that I could not be bought, as I would then be beholden to the state on which I was dependent for financing. For these reasons, I decided that I would tough it out and finance my own campaign. I put everything I had into the campaign that was not required for my medical bills and sustenance. When I say I personally sacrificed, I did.

You will have to consider whether you want to make that kind of sacrifice. Do you want to attain office that badly? It’s the most difficult road to travel and it is not for everyone. However, if you do not travel this road, what will you do? Remember, I assisted the junior partner during his campaign. He had lots of events and it was my experience that people have a tendency to give to those already in office. They are just not inclined to give to someone who is a newcomer or challenging an incumbent.

And you are facing tremendous hurdles. Yes, there are very wealthy people out there who will give. But will they give to you? My message appealed to the downtrodden, the little people who have nothing. Most may not have been able to afford to donate even if they wanted to. Perhaps you travel in more affluent circles. If so, by all means try and raise funds from your social circle. But realize that self-financing your campaign is an option.

CHAPTER IV – FIND THE RIGHT MESSAGE

During my first campaign, I was invited to speak to a group of civil trial attorneys, as were all of the other judicial candidates. One trial judge, who was running for the same seat that I was seeking, talked about himself and how he was fair to all litigants. And he stated to the group that he could not be bought. I filed away the information as I felt it would make a great campaign slogan.

When I decided to run my second campaign, my slogan became "She can not be bought." To emphasize the slogan, "cannot" was broken up into two words for emphasis. I am not suggesting that the other candidates would be willing to sell their vote. But the others are indebted to attorneys or special interests or they would not be where they are.

In contrast, I owe no one any favors and cannot be controlled by any source. I did not even accept donations! And I have always believed that the judiciary is a co-equal and independent branch of our government, not a rubber stamp for anyone. I wanted to present something different from the other candidates, I wanted to stress that my vote is not for sale, nor will I do what is "expedient" or what those in power dictate. I wanted to demonstrate that I was someone who would maintain my independence if elected, as I would have decided cases only on the facts and briefs presented by the parties and existing law.

My slogan related to the particular office for which I ran. I have no claim on it and anyone is welcome to use it. However, I would encourage you to find your own slogan in your own race, one that sums up and distills the essence of who you are and what you are about. We live in a time-sensitive, 30-second sound-bite world. You need to come up with a catchy phrase of your own, one that will hopefully stick in the minds of the voters.

Another theme that I echoed was on the concept of justice or the lack of it. It was a theme that really resonated with the voters. No matter their race or wealth, they understood. They knew what I was trying to say and do. And they supported my efforts.

CHAPTER V- GETTING YOUR MESSAGE OUT

The next thing that you will have to consider is how you are going to get your message out. What kind of office are you seeking? Is it purely local? Or statewide? I chose a statewide race.

North Carolina is one of the longest states east of the Mississippi River. From experience, I logged thousands of miles and I can tell you that this is indeed one long state. And my illness and trying to work placed an added burden on my time. Faced with these obstacles, I realized that visiting every county was not going to be realistic. And even if I did, who would I meet but a handful of individuals in most places? Of the events that I did attend, I saw many of the same faces there. I learned that the old method of campaigning is not practical in a statewide race. How then to reach a greater number of people?

The internet. I had been playing around on the internet for years, but it was only in the campaign run by the junior partner that it started to come into vogue. I and my campaign advisor saw the untapped possibilities and we put it to work in my first campaign. Learning on what we did in the first campaign, we then expanded its reach. The following are some of the secrets that I discovered:

1. Get a good webmaster to design your site- - good does not equate with money. Stay away from your family member or best friend who will do it on the cheap. Also, stay away from political opportunists procured by the party. Most of the other candidates’ websites are BORING and lack any really meaningful information anyway. Do choose someone that cannot be corrupted and that will not commit acts of sabotage or hold your website hostage or make recommendations as to how they think that you ought to run your campaign. You are paying them to be your webmaster, not paying them to be your campaign consultant. Maintain control of the registration of your website so that the webmaster cannot seize control of it.

2. Ever wonder how Google or other search engines find certain sites and lists them first? The companies pay for it. Want to be listed first? You control certain key words and can add or delete them as your campaign progresses. Choose the words and you will skyrocket to the top. A word of caution about this technique, however. Know that the tools that you use can and will be used by your enemies against you. If they are well-funded, they too can pay Google or Yahoo or another search engine and program certain key words. If there is an unflattering story about you, all your enemies have to do is program the key words and the negative story will stay at the top of the search engines if someone searches for you. Of course, this is likewise a tool that you can use against your enemies if something unflattering is printed about them.

3. Stay away from having a blog on your site and ignore all the political types who say otherwise. It will become a venue by which your enemies will use it to attack you. As Ronald Reagan once said, "I’m paying for this microphone." Since you are paying for the microphone of the internet, you control what goes on your site and what you will state, not someone else. This is about you and your quest for office, not about what someone else thinks. Refrain from blogging on other sites, but monitor what is said there if it relates to your campaign. Most bloggers do not have the influence that you think they have. Four or five people are regulars at various sites and you get the same comments from the same people. This will not get your message out to the masses of voters.

4. Issue regular email alerts. The uninitiated consider it spam. They are wrong. Political messages are not spam and were exempted from regulation by the Federal Elections Commission. However, make sure that you include a button so that people can take themselves of your email list if they would rather not hear from you. Other candidates send out several alerts a week. Your volume will depend on the office you are seeking. I tried to write something once a week or so, depending on work. Issuing email alerts also will help to create your name identification.

5. Consider the area in which you live and the office which you are seeking. I live in the Raleigh area. It is a relatively affluent area and one in which many people are connected to the internet. I knew that I was dealing with a computer-literate group. Other people in the state may live in more rural areas, but I discovered that they too are online. However, not everyone is internet-accessible and you still have to do some old-fashioned campaigning by attending functions and events. This becomes more necessary if you are in a purely local election. Knocking on doors is nice, but I question whether it is efficacious, even in local elections. This just does not seem to sway voters much anymore.

6. Have an email address by which you can be contacted. Get an internet phone service by which you can be contacted by telephone. I found one that is very cheap, that allows me to fax and phone, but there are others. Use these services to respond personally to every email or phone call that you receive. I did that with most of my contacts, whether they were positive or negative. It surprised most people that I took the time to respond. I call it "winning the fans." It worked as I managed to even win over some of my initial detractors.

7. Stay away from political consultants. I realize that people must earn a living and this is one profession that people enter. Many of them do not have principles and will work for either Republicans or Democrats; I call these types “political prostitutes” as that is essentially what they are. They are willing to sell their services for the right price. Some do have principles and will only work for candidates who share these philosophies. Regardless of the type that you are dealing with, most will not even consent to meet with you unless you have large sums of cash. If you want political advice, then be prepared to pay even more. Who among us has this kind of money to spend on consultants, for ordinary and often mediocre advice?

My campaign advisor is from the old school and does not believe in charging for his services. Even though he had few resources to work with he managed to make the opposition spend money. He was able to get the mainstream media to give me free publicity. He came up with creative ideas regarding the management of the campaign. If you can find an advisor like this, latch onto him. Otherwise, leave this alone unless you have the money to spend on such resources.

8. Exposure – during the campaign, I received tons of hate mail, ranging from death threats, to being called vile names or other types of hate mail. I also received many positive responses, whether it is from people in my own state, people throughout the United States or people throughout the world. I learned to deal with the negative comments in various ways, but the most effective way is to expose them for who and what they are. Create a hate-mail feature on your website and post the hate mail there along with your response. Create a corresponding section in which the supportive emails will be placed.

9 The internet is here to stay, or at least until it can be regulated by the government, which is not far-fetched or something from the science fiction movies. At least one presidential hopeful, Newt Gingrich, is threatening to curtail the right to free speech and he is being applauded by fools. Hopefully, that will not happen anytime soon, but one never knows. Believe me, the beast is trying to figure out a way to control it. Until that day comes, use the internet. Glitzy mailers are nice, but costly, and will only end up lining someone’s trashcan. Instead, put the internet to use as a cost effective tool to get your message out. And the internet allows you to respond instantly; with the internet, you no longer need to rely on others, like the mainstream media, to make your voice heard.

Aside from the internet and old-fashioned campaigning by attending events, how else do you get your message out? If you have the resources for advertisements, use them wisely. Here, the judicial candidates who received the free money spent it like sailors on shore leave. They squandered it on many meaningless items and in all the wrong places. First, most spent it on road signs. They paid someone to drive up and down the interstate or highway to put three signs by an exit. However, if you are going to rely on signs, it helps if another candidate has the same last name as you do, as you then get all of the benefits and none of the burdens!

Kidding aside, I noticed the signs, but frequently could not read what was on them or what seat the candidate was even running for. I also noticed that virtually all of the signs were not placed in yards but alongside the roadways. Signs in yards signify that a person has support. Signs along roadways and at intersections signifies only that the sign-man was out putting up a candidate’s signs. And the signs often get lost in the conglomeration of signs that are at the intersections. Rule of thumb - don’t waste your money on signs.

Where else did they waste their money? On mainstream radio. Mainstream radio is hideously expensive. I found smaller sports or religious stations in little communities throughout the state. These were the stations that were really listened to by the people and they were much more reasonable in terms of cost. Candidates also spent their free money on television. Some candidates even went with mainstream television. Stay away from these channels as again advertising is expensive. A few candidates realized this and went with cable. Cable is much cheaper, but you have to target your commercials so that they will not get lost in the mass of political commercials out there. Target. Which group are you appealing to? What channels does this group watch? When do they watch? It makes no sense to run commercials during the day if your target group is people that work. So air the commercials when your group is most likely to be watching.

Good places to spend your money – on blog ads. Choose from a variety of sources, whether it is online newspapers or the Weather Channel. And don’t laugh-people do go to the Weather Channel. Don’t place your ads with all of the political ads. Put it where it will be seen-on the first page. Some websites are more expensive than others. Do make your deals early so that you can get a good price; don’t wait until the last two weeks of the campaign. I know that is when the voters get interested, but you will have to build name identification, remember? Start early and then come back for a second pass.

CHAPTER VI - ILLNESS

Something that was very much a part of my campaign was my brain tumor. Illness may not be a factor in your campaign, particularly an illness of this type. To the extent that you suffer from a handicap, you may find this chapter informative. If not, you may want to move ahead to the next chapter.

Two weeks after I first put my name on the ballot in the 2004 campaign, I woke up one day with a full feeling in my right ear, a diminished ability to ear out of that ear and tinnitus. At first, I thought it was an excessive accumulation of earwax and I used an over-the-counter medicine to see if this could be relieved. This did not work and I decided to see a family doctor. The doctor confirmed that earwax was not a problem and felt that there might be an ear infection. I took antibiotics, but still no change.

In researching the issue, I learned that the cause of tinnitus was unknown and that the condition was incurable. Brain tumors called acoustic neuromas or schwannomas were noted, but were rare. Based on this information, I felt that I probably had tinnitus, that there was nothing that medicine could do and that I should resign myself to living with it.

I proceeded through the first campaign and continued to get more tired. I felt this was just part of getting older. One day in January of 2005, I woke up and went to the bathroom. The room was spinning and I was not intoxicated or hung over from too much partying the night before. Something was very wrong.

I made an appointment to see an ear-nose-throat doctor. She wanted me to get an MRI. I did. The doctor called me and told me the results-I had a brain tumor that was non-cancerous called an acoustic neuroma.

In looking back, all of my problems started when I lived in Erie, Pennsylvania and it played, in part, in my decision to leave Pennsylvania. After I had relocated to North Carolina, I had one episode of vertigo, but that was followed by a really severe head cold. I thought that it was the head cold which caused these symptoms. Over the years, I had noticed that I was getting more and more tired. My other problems with my health had continued and I even remarked to family that something was killing me. It was. It was the tumor. I just had not put all of this together at the time, but that is what it was.

Because of the tumor, I would need further specialization and I chose to go to Duke. If I have learned nothing else from this condition, it is to go somewhere that has experience with these things and I am fortunate to live so closely to a medical facility that does have such experience. I met with my new doctors at the end of January. My tumor was considered too large for any procedure other than surgery. Surgery was a big deal and required coordination of many healthcare professionals. My surgery was scheduled in May.

Over the next few months, my condition really began to deteriorate. I was crashing into walls and needed to use the walls as a crutch for my sense of balance. I could not walk over uneven ground and would fall. My right eye began to dry out. I did not know it at the time, but the tumor started growing in the back of my brain. As it grew and became larger, it moved to fill my ear canal and destroyed my hearing and balance nerve and finally my facial nerve. By the time of surgery, it was thoroughly entwined among my cranial nerves.

Surgery took place at the end of May, right before Memorial Day. I went in early in the morning and came out around 9:00 p.m. Thirteen and one-half hours of surgery. You would have thought that my detractors might have taken a break, but no. They continued with their attacks even as I lay on the operating table and while I recuperated in the hospital. Others too busy, too important or too incompetent to remove themselves from my email list demanded that I take them off, like a former gubernatorial candidate. I decided, as weak as I was, that I would not do so. They could voluntarily unsubscribe and if they were too stupid, illiterate, lazy, busy, or if they did not have a browser that would permit this, that was their problem. I had more important things to do. Like recover.

I was discharged from the hospital within five (5) days after my surgery, but I was in no condition to do very much. I was very weak. My handwriting resembled that of an eighty (80)-year old. What the tumor did not destroy of my hearing, the surgery did, and I am deaf in my right ear now. I had stitches in my head that had to be coated with an antibiotic ointment and I could not wash my hair. My right eye was not closing and I had an ointment for that as well. But more importantly, I discovered that the right side of my face was paralyzed and that is why my right eye failed to close.

The paralysis has resolved somewhat, but its been almost two years now and there is no further improvement. Although some facial creases have returned, the muscles around my mouth and eye have not returned to their normal function. I have to drink everything, including coffee and wine, using a straw. The right side of my mouth is numb, like from being administered Novocain by the dentist. My senses of taste and smell are blunted. I have lost my hearing of course and the tinnitus in my right ear is constant. I also lost the ability to type with my right hand with the exception of my index finger.

People who are unfamiliar with my condition have said that I look like a freak or a "retard" as some of my detractors remarked. Anyone who has experienced an injury of this type knows that one must learn to do things again. It is a natural human urge to smile in posing for a picture. I have tried to train myself not to do so, but I sometimes forget and only one side of my face responds.

As I did not have enough vacation time, I returned to work after about three and one-half (3 1/2) weeks. For anyone going through this procedure, I would encourage them to take off six (6) to eight (8) weeks if they can afford to do so. I was still very tired and working exhausted me. I would come home from work, eat dinner and collapse. That still happens now. I do not have the stamina that I once had.

My right eye still had problems and the eye doctor referred me to an eye surgeon. In October, he implanted a gold weight in my right eyelid to help the eye close. Now, I look like even more of a freak/retard, as my right eyelid hangs a little lower than the left. As the facial paralysis is still present and the eye is still not fully closing, I am resigned that I will have to leave the weight in, even though the weight bothers me. I still have to put drops in my eye, but not as frequently as before.

I had my follow-up MRI in January. The neurosurgeon told me that only a sliver of tumor was left in following surgery because it had adhered to my facial nerve and the surgeon wanted to preserve as much facial function as possible. Unfortunately, when this is done, the tumors have a high rate of recurrence and I was no exception. What I did not count on was how rapidly the tumor had come back. The January 2006 MRI showed that the tumor had grown to a size of one (1) centimeter. The doctors decided to watch it and another MRI was scheduled for July. Some of the old symptoms, like the dizziness and using the wall as a crutch, had started to come back.

When the July MRI was done, the news was not good. In just six months, the tumor had doubled to about two (2) centimeters, medium-size. It was time to act and to do so quickly. Neither I nor the surgeons were particularly interested in doing another surgery. And surgery would destroy whatever level of facial function that I had. So I was referred to a radiation oncologist.

An oncologist? Isn't that a cancer doctor? I thought you said that the tumor was not cancerous? Yes, my tumor was not cancerous, but it can be just as life-threatening if left untreated. And this doctor treats all kinds of brain tumors with radiation, those that are cancerous and those that are not. The doctors were also concerned that these tumors usually grow slowly and mine was growing at a faster rate than was normal for this kind of tumor.

After meeting with the radiation oncologist, he scheduled me for a single dose of radiation at a high enough level to kill the tumor, but not high enough to make me radioactive. The treatment was not enjoyable. I had to have a head-frame screwed into my skull. And I had to sit with that thing on all day until the radiation team came up with a treatment plan for me. The procedure itself went quickly, but that device was awful and I had a headache until it was taken off. I hope that some bio-medical engineer can come up with something better in the future. However, it was still better than the surgery.

As a result of the radiation, my hair fell out in a two-inch by four-inch (2" x 4") area on the right side of my head. Fortunately, the hair is now starting to grow back, although my head is itchy at times. A recent MRI showed only minimal growth, which the doctor has interpreted as some swelling, so I am now taking a low dose of steroids to see if it reduces the swelling. He also observed an area indicating that the tumor is starting to die. I hope so, for I told the doctor that I want no more of these procedures. I have had enough. I am still dizzy and I still have numbness, both of which come and go, but which have become more bothersome of late. And I am still tired. But I am alive. The next MRI is scheduled for next year.

How was I able to campaign through my illness? I don't know. Many other candidates would have dropped out and few would have had the kind of courage and energy to endure and persevere that I had. Fortunately, my surgeries and the radiation really did not affect the campaign too much. There were only a few occasions where I did not go to an event because I was just too tired.

During the course of the campaign, I encountered many people who had themselves or had a friend or relative that experienced the kind of tumor that I have or a similar illness. Most people understood and were very sympathetic. However, various people commented initially that I looked like a freak and a retard. I look the way I do because of the surgeries that I have had. I don't want to look this way, but I have no choice. I am not going to wear a paper bag over my head or refrain from going out in public. And I am not going to change my daily activities just because of a few idiotic individuals. However, these unthinking and unkind comments made me decide that from now on, I would incorporate the tumor and surgeries into my speeches to explain why I look the way I do.

And it made me much more compassionate and aware of the plight of others who may have other physical challenges, whether they are deaf, blind or in a wheelchair. In fact, I became aware of a group in Greensboro, North Carolina which was facing problems with the transportation system. Many of these individuals are of limited means, yet they faced a doubling of their transportation fares and a reduction in their level of service. For many of these people, it will mean the difference between not making one or more trips to the doctor or school. I am pleased to have learned that they have finally come to an accommodation with the city regarding transportation and an increase in their costs.

Those who are conservative like to talk about how people should be independent. However, when conservatives talk of a reduction in the funding transportation for the physically-challenged or blind, they suggest that these people should be dependent on friends or family for their transportation. This is hypocritical. Some of these people may not have friends or family. Others are trying to be as independent as possible. Do you think they enjoy being dependent on others? They don’t. They want to be treated just like the rest of us, but there needs to be recognition that they need a little help, like with transportation, to allow them to have as full a life as possible.

I do understand the needs of the taxpayers, but when I see so much waste in government and the bona fide needs of some of its citizens, I think that government and the taxpayers can do much better. The Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote "[t]he degree of civilization in a society can be judged by observing its prisoners." To that I would add that the degree of civilization in a society can also be judged by how we treat the less fortunate or less physically able, whether it is the handicapped, the unborn or the elderly, as well as our prisoners. We have a long way to go in this respect.

That is how and why I used my illness in my campaign. I hope that you do not suffer from any serious ailments that it becomes necessary for you to do the same. However, if you do find yourself in this position, consider how I was able to turn a negative into a positive and to use it to advantage.

Great stuff.
 
News of the 10th district: See Pat Go Bye Bye,

Its okay to print it ; Isn't it??

CHAPTER IX – THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA

During my campaign, a jurist was quoted by the newspaper as saying that he did not talk to the media. As I have come to learn, everything that you see and hear in the mainstream media is suspect, at least until you have confirmed it from another source. Regardless of whether he said it or not, it is an excellent piece of advice, however I would add one minor change and that is never to talk to the mainstream media.

There are many alternative sources of the media, such as satellite radio or alternative journalists that do try to get the truth out. Learn to differentiate for not all media can be treated the same. However, I encountered a few specimens of the mainstream media which deserve special treatment.

I have already talked about the Fayetteville Observer and Salisbury Post. The Winston-Salem Journal can be added to that list as well. Whenever the NC GOP needed an unfavorable story, they turned to these sources. The stories are "planted" there and sometimes they are picked up by other newspapers. An example is the story about former Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr running for governor. The story was planted as a trial balloon in the Winston-Salem Journal. It has now been picked up by the Raleigh News & Observer and other news sources.

In fairness to the Fayetteville and Salisbury papers, I should note that they did afford me an opportunity to respond to the negative press by writing a letter to the editor. However, keeping a letter to 250 words does not afford you much space in which to rebut claims. And you have to keep letters to the editor within those parameters. Anything longer than that and the editors will edit it anyway. That is the beauty of having your own website; not only can you expose your enemy, but you have a megaphone in which you can do so in as much detail as you want. That is why it is such an effective tool.

Radio stations are also subject to the same failings. Like most folks, I listen to the traffic and weather in the morning to help keep me moving as I eat and get ready. The morning host at WPTF had been to the John Locke Foundation and was parroting the Art Pope line. Finally, I could take no more and searched for something else. I tuned in to WZTK, a radio station in Greensboro, North Carolina, which featured Brad Krantz and Britt Whitmire. They also were owned by the Curtis Media Group, but I hoped that the message would not be so blatantly one-sided.

For awhile, things went well until Brad and Britt decided to discuss my alleged mental state and related how I had supposedly checked myself into a mental institution. I promptly switched the dial to something else, but the damage had been done. Family members who listened called me in a panic and I had to assure them that the story was completely untrue.

Did either Brad or Britt call me and attempt to verify the information? No. Did they try and verify the information with a mental health facility where I supposedly was detained? No. Where did they hear such nonsense? From whomever gave it to them, from whomever wanted me to look bad. Since the radio station was controlled by Curtis Media, I suspect it was the NC GOP, but it does not matter who provided this information. What matters is that it was wholly untrue and unverified. And even if the talk show hosts were not acting on behalf of anyone and just made this up, I had to wonder to myself, if they are so wrong about something small like this, what else are these people wrong about, what else do they pontificate about without having any evidence or checking any facts and why should I or anyone else listen to what they have to say? I turned them off and found something else.

Mainstream newspaper journalists are not much better than those on the radio. They are somewhat lazy and do not want to be bothered with fact-checking either. As a result, they play the game of letting a writer for the Associated Press (AP) do their work for them. They then re-print the AP story. In the alternative, a story may be “planted” in a small newspaper, like in Winston-Salem or elsewhere in the hopes that it will be picked up by the AP and then reported in other media outlets.

One of the tactics the AP writers utilized was to call my campaign headquarters, late in the day. My campaign advisor and I tried to checks the phones at least once in the day, but sometimes we would not get to it. On other occasions, we would check early on and not come back to it. You see, my campaign phone was not a real phone at all, but an internet site. It did not ring at my desk, so I could not pick up the phone until I logged into the site. The AP reporter would call, knowing that no one would respond, announce he was on deadline and give me an hour to call back. When I did not call back by the deadline, the story indicated that I did not respond. My campaign advisor got wise to the AP’s tactics and learned that a writer would update the story. He was able to salvage a few stories this way.

However, if it was so important that I be reached for comment, why did not the reporter call me at work? The answer is that the reporter did not want to reach me and wanted to make me look as badly as possible. This was not limited to the AP; the Salisbury Post did much the same thing, calling saying they were on deadline and leaving me an hour to respond. Be aware of this tactic.

Another reporter is Ed Cone of the Greensboro News & Record. He also has his own blogging site. He is a friend of John Hood of the John Locke Foundation/Carolina Journal. Remember that the beast controls both sides? Its has its foot in each camp. John Hood from the right, Ed Cone from the left.

Ed Cone long ago abandoned any pretense of journalistic integrity and ethics, even going beyond all bounds for defaming a public figure as established in New York Times v. Sullivan,[1] in that he acted with actual malice. His task was to portray me in the worst light imaginable. On one occasion, his comment that I was missing was seen by my campaign advisor, who suggested that Ed Cone call me at the office. He did and he reached me. I was where I was supposed to be.

However, this did not put an end to his attacks, which became even more vicious and vitriolic as the campaign went on. He called me “batshit crazy” and " nuts" after he had the gall to tell me earlier that he hoped people were decent in light of my brain tumor. He also characterized my tumor as a "tawdry campaign gimmick."

No, Mr. Cone, the brain tumor is very real and is hardly a tawdry campaign gimmick. I cannot remember what normal is like. I have lost my balance nerve, my hearing and my sense of taste and smell has been severely blunted. I cannot enjoy the simple pleasure of taking a walk because I experience a sense that something is not quite right, which I describe as “dizziness,” although others may describe it as a feeling of being on a ship at sea. However it is described, I seldom get up from my desk because of this.

I have occasional sharp pains in my head. The itchiness in my scalp comes and goes as does the numbness. My face is paralyzed on the right side. Not only can I never smile again, I have to drink everything through a straw and I have difficulty eating. When the numbness acts up, it feels as though I am drooling on the right side and I occasionally slur my words because of the facial paralysis. If I could give up everything I have just to return to normal, I would do it.

The tumor itself is not cancerous. However, this kind of tumor can be just as life-threatening. The bones of the skull have grown and fused together by the time of adulthood. The skull thus cannot expand; it is like a fixed case. Acoustic neuromas do not grow in the brain tissue itself; they grown on the auditory nerve. If left to grow, the brain cannot expand as it is within the enclosed skull and the tumor starts pushing portions of the brain out of the way and begins interfering with brain function. That was the cause of me crashing into walls, my inability to walk over uneven or rough ground, my right eye drying out and the other problems I experienced.

When the tumor grew back, the doctor said that I would have significant problems if something were not done. Those were his words, not mine. I did not make the tumor an issue during my 2004 campaign because the tumor had not been diagnosed yet.

However, after I found out about the tumor in January of 2005, I made it a part of my campaign. I am as well as I am going to ever be whenever I am seated and I only have difficulty hearing in crowded settings, like social events or crowded restaurants. My appearance would of course have no relevance to my ability to hear and decide cases. As a result, I did not feel that the tumor and my symptoms would significantly affect my duties as a justice in the event that I was elected. But I felt that the voters had a right to know about my condition and its possible effect on my ability to fulfill the duties of the office and that is why I made it a part of my campaign.

If I had not made it an issue, then my detractors would have accused me of hiding my medical condition. It was “damned if you do or damned if you don't.” And I explained that there were derogatory comments by a handful of ignorant fools. Their ugly remarks about my appearance made me decide to opt on the side of the truth and take away their negative statements and hopefully turn it into something positive. Its hard to argue with a woman with a brain tumor, but in their rage and hatred, they still managed. So I talked about the tumor and incorporated it into my campaign speech. This then was my "tawdry campaign gimmick."

In response to his other remarks such as my being “batshit crazy”, I ask what qualifications does he possess to make such a psychiatric diagnosis? What facts did he present to support his conclusion? How can he conclude whether I am fit or unfit for office? What legal skills does he have to make this assessment? To all these questions, the answer is none.

I, on the other hand, met many of the candidates running for office. I said to my campaign advisor that after seeing these people, I am as equally qualified, if not more so, than they. Six hundred thousand voters thought so too, Mr. Cone, and the result may even have been higher but for the actions of the beast.

Another reporter from th