You have questions?

1) I would like to know if they support the expansion of the public financing program to all council of state races and if they do, would they participate?

2) Do they support extending same day registration to allow registration and voting on election day?

"jump in where you can and hang on"
Briscoe Darling to Sheriff Andy

No weasel answers.

Fixing climate change or profits for big energy.

Health care for all kids and full-time workers or profits for insurance companies.

Getting our road repairs back on schedule or tax cuts for those making over $250,000.

Real science (evolution, climate change) or pseudoscience (not sure if climate change is real, evolution is "just" a theory).

One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

It's estimated that North Carolina is 50th in the nation in per capita mental health spending. At the end of your first term, where would you like NC to rank? What will you propose?

Is mental health as much a right as other health care? Why or why not?

Many private providers sprung up as a result of the NC mental health reform. Many public providers that turned private have collapsed, leaving no safety net other than hospitalization. Since private for-profit providers can't afford to provide necessary services due to low or delayed reimbursement, how will you recreate the safety net while continuing to create incentives for private providers?

Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi

either you or your opponent will be the Democratic Nominee for Governor. If it is your opponent, how will you help unite the North Carolina Democratic Party?

Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi

I'd like to know how Bev Perdue justifies using negative push polls, and would like to ask both candidates to agree not to use such dirty tactics.

Also, are either considering public financing and/or spending limits?

Moderators, I am sorry this is so long, but to many times when I ask elected officials about the OLF, I have to first educate them on it. So this is an educational as well as question thread. Because I do not fully understand the parameters agreed to by the participants, hacking this down is to be expected. I thank you in advance for the opportunity to ask these questions. My questions are in no particular order or priority. Parmea.

NE NC has been fighting the Navy on an OLF.

This OLF has touched or impacted about 16 counties or 16% of the state. That is a fair amount of impact.

This issue has many ramifications.

Some are:

the keeping or hurting the states reputation of "a military friendly state."

Preserving and protecting the future role of our other military bases from potential attacks from other states if we do not allow this OLF in our state.

Governor Easley, Lt. Gov Perdue, Rep. Butterfield, Senators Dole and Burr have all pretty much said the same thing. This OLF should have the support of the local people. All have said they would not support the Navy in forcing an OLF in our state.

This OLF identified a huge loophole in how our state allowed the Federal Government to acquire land in our state. Statute 104-7 was changed because of the grassroots request. This changing of the condemnation and eminent domain laws for exclusive jurisdiction by the federal government should have made it where the Navy or any federal government entity cannot condemn large tracts of land esp for the military without the consent of the State.

This fight has been about protecting the habitat of NC and the quality of life of North Carolinians. For eight years, the Navy has been trying to convince the State to allow them to place an OLF in a community.

This OLF has been about property rights, eminent domain, condemnation, fairness and equality.

This fight has had our current governor request the Navy not talk to potentially effected communities and counties on a proposed OLF.

Our current governor has given the perception that he does not care about the poorest counties in the State. He has allowed this fight to go on for to long.

Our current governor has also appeared to care more about the people of Virginia over the people of North Carolina.

This fight has also shown that to many politicians are interested in "how will this help me" vice doing what is proper for the State and the people. Many letters from the region have been sent to our representatives and yet the region is still being considered.

If this was a national defense issue, the president would have so declared and an OLF would be built in Washington County right now. This indicates that the statement of not required to support Oceana is substantiated. The only reason an OLF is needed to support Oceana is because of the mismanagement around Oceana and Fentress by the Navy and the Cities of Hampton Roads.

My questions are:

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The canned response to most of my questions are "I understand were your coming from, but their is a process that must be followed. Until that process has proven it is not being followed, we cannot tell the Navy were they should place their OLF." And "I am monitoring this NEPA process and I understand your concerns." For eight years, NC has been working this process.

is about NC's public University system. I am convinced that the primary catalyst of NC's success and current leadership positions in business, industry, medicine and research are nearly wholly due to our most excellent affordable public Universities. I am also convinced that maintaining NC's leadership in those areas and expanding into other areas of leadership depends nearly wholly on continuing our commitment to an affordable excellent public University education.

Do you agree? How will you keep costs at our best Universities (room/board/tuition/fees) within the grasp of kids from average NC families? What, in your view, defines "affordable" for the average NC family?

"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." - Harry Truman

Only three members of the State Board of Education are directly elected by the people of North Carolina statewide: the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Lieutenant Governor and the State Treasurer.

That's significant. The Superintendent is an obvious choice, given that role's responsibilities, though that officer serves as secretary and isn't a voting member. But the Lieutenant Governor's and the State Treasurer's membership on the board is just as important, because of their authority in shaping education policy through legislation and because education spending takes more than 53 percent of the state's annual budget (including pre-school and higher education).

In your roles as Lieutenant Governor and State Treasurer, how important is it to attend these board meetings? More to the point, how often have you made it a priority to attend these meetings? What reasons do you consider sufficient to miss these meetings?

Several different studies have been requested and commissions empaneled, and the results keep showing that we need to begin the work of constructing a light rail and bus network throughout the Triangle and the Triad.

This is not just a liberal pet-project, it's an outright necessity for our state. Our population is growing at an astounding rate, as is our population of automobiles. A combination of rising gas prices, traffic congestion, and a rising public awareness of the impact of vehicle emissions on our health and the future of our planet, have served to convince a vast majority of our citizens that we need this network, and we need it now, not sometime in the distant future of science fiction.

And yes, it will be expensive. Painfully so. But as NCPIRG explains in their executive summary, the economic benefits far outweigh the costs (there's also a pdf link to the entire report on the right side of the page):

For every dollar invested in transit, America saves nearly two dollars in avoided costs on top of the economic development benefits. In 2005, federal, state and local governments spent $30.9 billion to provide transit services (not including fares). These investments yielded at least $60 billion per year in benefits from reduced vehicle expenses, avoided congestion, global warming emission reductions, reduced road expenditures, reduced spending on parking, and avoided traffic accidents. In other words, investment in transit more than pays for itself even before accounting for its direct economic stimulus.

As governor, this should be somewhere in your top five list of priorities. What steps will you take to move this off of paper and into reality?

Questions should be short. Questions should be challenging. But what makes a question "tough" isn't necessarily the philosophical difficulty of a given issue. In fact,the more complex the question, the easier it is for a politician to dodge it.

Sometimes what is interesting and revealing is not a question that necessarily looks "tough" but one that is sufficiently succinct that it is difficult to dodge, and yet provides insight into how the candidate thinks.

Which brings me back to my question, which I thought was pretty good, pretty succinct and yet seems to be buried back on another thread (seemed like the place to ask at the time).

My question might not strike a lot of people as "tough," but it's a question that I care deeply about and that I think would tell us something about the candidate, and it's one I've never seen asked.

I guarantee you there are canned answers for a lot of the issues that have already been raised.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing
-Edmund Burke

I think that the hospitialization insurance is too high and it goes up too often. Why does the insurance increase every time the workers get a raise. Corrections in NC has one of the lowest pay scales and the starting and ending salaries are never reached by some employees. I would like to see the gaps in wages closed and maybe see insurance stop increeasing for a few years.
I would like to see something done about the outrageous gas prices. The prices are never the same and the merchants are really gouging the prices. If they are caught, price gouging, they should be fined and closed down for 1 month. If it is continuous, they should be closed down. What do you think?