archived: 22 - 28 Oct, 2006         Back                 Next

UPDATED:  OCTOBER 26, 2006

                        THE 8^TH CONGRESSIONAL  

First it was for US Senator John Edwards.  Second, it was State Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek.  This week, former Gov. Jim Hunt stumped door to door with Larry Kissell in the 8^th Congressional District.  

Hunt stressed a very simple but effective message, the Federal government is in a mess under Republican leadership and Democrats can do better: 

Jim Hunt, a four-term North Carolina governor, greeted people on their front porches Tuesday morning to stump for Larry Kissell, a fellow Democrat who is running for Congress.

 

Kissell hopes to topple U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes, a wealthy Republican from Concord who was first elected to the 8th District in 1998.

 

“This is my friend, Larry Kissell,” Hunt told people who answered their doors in a neighborhood off Bragg Boulevard. “He is a fine, upright Christian man.”

Hunt . . . smiled and spoke in a folksy tone that played up Kissell’s experience in education and textiles. Many people recognized Hunt. . . .  Hunt said Congress is a mess that needs new leaders such as Kissell. “He started out as an underdog,” Hunt said. “People said he didn’t have a chance. He has a great chance now.”

As Hunt’s appearance demonstrates, the NC Democratic Party leadership has worked hard to help Kissell’s insurgent campaign.  Rep. Hays has approximately $1.9 Million Dollars while Kissell has raised slightly over $300,000.

Despite the Republican advantage in fundraising, Democratic energy in the District is high.  Wayne Goodwin, Chairman of the Richmond County Democratic Party, recently staged a rally that was attended by over 400 Democrats. Goodwin believes this is the most Democrats to turn out since a rally for Gov. Hunt’s reelection campaign in 1980.                                               

                        5^TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT  

The Winston-Salem Journal recently endorsed Democrat Roger Sharpe over incumbent Rep. Foxx.  The editorial endorsement is even more compelling as the WSJ is conservative editorially.   

The WSJ’s editorial projects an understanding that the Republican Party has failed to provide America leadership – the Federal government under Republicans is a scandal ridden mess. Strip away the names of the candidates and substitute the Party and the editorial provides very good reasons why we are Democrats.  

The sad thing about Virginia Foxx's performance as the 5th District congressional representative is that it did not have to be this way. She had no need to be such a hard-right Republican marching in lockstep with the Bush administration and the House Republican leadership.

 

The Journal endorses Roger Sharpe, her Democratic challenger, for the 5th District seat in the belief that he would do more to try to bring about badly needed change in the Republican-dominated Congress.

 

Foxx has demonstrated time and again that she would be an impediment to such change. Once she had emerged from the loud and offensive primaries as the GOP Nominee in 2004, she could have considered herself nearly home free. The district has been configured to give Republicans an edge; Richard Burr won five terms as its representative and probably would have gone on winning had he not moved to the Senate.

 

So Foxx could have moved toward the moderate center and reached out to her Democratic and independent constituents as well. She could have been a representative with a mind of her own, one who was willing to do what was in the best interests of her district. She could have abandoned the shrillness that poisons our politics and could have tried to build consensus. . . .

 

[F]or the most part, Foxx has done little to establish herself as an independent voice. The notable exception was her protest vote against a hastily arranged package of federal aid for victims of Hurricane Katrina; Foxx wanted at least some accountability.

 

On most other issues, however, Foxx has not only swallowed the party line uncritically; she has also helped to spread it. She spouted the Bush administration's rosy talking points on Iraq even as military commanders were painting a grimmer picture. Given the opportunity to speak out against the House leadership for its woefully inadequate response to the Mark Foley e-mails to House pages, she declined. She has exploited fears and prejudices against immigrants. She has played fast and loose with the truth, including sending letters and e-mail messages misrepresenting this newspaper's editorial policies in a ploy to raise more money.

 

The GOP leaders she has so obediently followed have presided over a Do-Nothing Congress that is immersed in scandals. A vote to send her back to Congress would be a vote to continue to do nothing about immigration, Social Security, Medicare, energy independence and other problems facing the nation. It would be a vote to continue condoning the selling of government to the highest-bidding lobbyists.

 

A vote for Roger Sharpe, a former state senator and educator and an author, would be a vote for change. Sharpe is a well-educated, thoughtful man who has devoted much of his life to public service. A native of western North Carolina, he knows the 5th District and its needs, and would be more likely to put the best interests of the district ahead of the wishes of his party's leaders. The Journal did not endorse Sharpe in the Democratic primary because he had largely been out of politics since the late 1970s, but he has run a competent, thoughtful, clean campaign and is well informed on a broad range of issues. Thoughtfulness, integrity, civility and independence are qualities that are sorely needed in Congress.

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UPDATED:  OCTOBER 24, 2006

                        THE REPUBLICAN SQUEEZE  

What has Republican national economic policy done for North Carolina? 

Although growth is slowing, it has essentially been steady since mid-2001. September's unemployment rate was a low 4.6 percent and the Dow Jones industrial average reached record highs this week.

 

But through September, the growth in hourly wages was flat or negative for 27 of the previous 29 months, according to Labor Department data. Wages for blue-collar and nonmanagerial workers -- 80 percent of workers -- are growing at a 3.9 percent annual rate, the Labor Department said in September. Consumer-price inflation, however, is rising at the same rate. That means prices are rising as quickly as wages.

 

Workers are barely keeping up. Health care, wages and energy prices are consumers' top three economic concerns, according to a Gallup poll in September.

 

"That has to do with things like stagnant wages, fears of jobs being outsourced, income security. These are on people's minds, particularly in lower- and middle-income areas," said Dennis Jacobe, chief economist in Charlotte for Gallup.

 

"I think it's quite clear to people that their paychecks are being squeezed when they try to meet their family budgets," said Jared Bernstein, the chief economist for the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington. "There's a disconnect between overall economic performance and paychecks of working families."

Had enough?  The message for North Carolinians is vote Democrat.

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OCTOBER 22, 2006

                        BUSH NC  

Bush campaigned in North Carolina’s 5^th Congressional District last week.  His appearance in this District, not really a competitive race, continues the Republican strategy of keeping the President out of hotly contested elections.   

The reason remains quite simple.  Bush’s approval ratings are extremely low and sending Bush into critical election Districts could be counter productive.  For example, Rep. Charles Taylor is in an election that many observers believe Democrat Heath Schuler is leading in North Carolina’s 12^th Congressional District.  Why was Bush not sent into that District? 

Republicans were literally tripping over themselves to explain why Bush did not campaign in the competitive North Carolina Districts: 

President Bush mixed election-season politics with talk of his education policies in a hopscotch visit Wednesday across the state's Piedmont.

 

Bush ended a nine-hour visit to North Carolina, his second trip here in three months, at a $1,000-per-person fundraiser for the Republican National Committee.

 

It was held in the mansion of Aldona Wos, U.S. ambassador to Estonia, and her husband, businessman Louis DeJoya -- a prominent Greensboro couple who has helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for Republicans in recent years. No figures were available on how much the event brought in.  . . .

 

Bush did not spend time with Republican Vernon Robinson, the challenger to U.S. Rep. Brad Miller in the 13th Congressional District, which includes parts of Greensboro, or with U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor, a Republican facing what polls indicate is a close race in the mountains against Democrat Heath Shuler. . . .

 

Burr downplayed questions about why Bush did not campaign on behalf of candidates in the state's hottest congressional races, particularly on behalf of Hayes and Taylor.

 

"I think we're good in both of those districts," Burr said. "And I think it's a function of, how many places can the president of the United States go."

 

The evening fundraiser, he said, is "much more valuable to all Republican candidates because it deals with money."

 

Foxx said the money the president will help raise is needed to win elections. But she also said she rearranged her schedule to make sure she spent time with the president in the state.

 

"I certainly did not want there to be any doubts about my running away from the president," she said. 

TPJ offers one reason Bush did not go into the 11^th Congressional District.  Read the article immediately below.                       

                        A REPUBLICAN BATH  

JUNKIE:  The New Vistas-Mountain Laurel Mental Health Services was a western North Carolina privatized community mental health, substance abuse, and developmental disability system.  It was a part of the mental health reform that provided “safety net” of services for approximately 10,000 people in the Asheville area.  It recently closed because of the lack of funding.  Throughout North Carolina, all 29 similar providers have closed.  Some have reincarnated.

The letter to the editor below appeared in the Asheville Citizen Times.  The author, Michael Hopping, powerfully documents the consequences of Republican policy on citizens. Hopping was formerly a North Carolina community mental health physician. 

Hopping’s wonderful portrayal should remind every North Carolina citizen that much is at stake in the pending elections. 

________   

The collapse of New Vistas-Mountain Laurel Mental Health Services is not the first major failure in North Carolina’s recently privatized community mental health, substance abuse, and developmental disability system. It won’t be the last. And this is as it should be.

 

Since the days of Ronald Reagan, tens of millions of us have dreamed of the day government would be off our backs and out of our pockets. With Grover Norquist, we imagined starving the federal budget until it was small enough to drown in the bathtub. We voted for politicians who railed against social spending and entitlement programs such as Medicaid and Medicare. Privatization, they cried, and we listened. We demanded tax cuts. Federal, state and local politicians complied, but the relief is still not enough.

 

Forty-six million of us haven’t yet saved enough in taxes to afford health insurance. That number can only rise as private employers reduce health benefits or eliminate them entirely, as Wal-Mart is doing, by hiring more workers part-time. Those of us who do have private coverage are seeing increases far above the rate of inflation for premiums and prescription drug costs. Give us a Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Throw the bums out who bleed us for property taxes.

 

Enough. I’m sorry, but those who believe this stuff will have to speak for themselves from here on. It’s just that they’ve been so thunderously silent about taking public credit for an inevitable result of their efforts. Republicans, Libertarians, and free market Democrats wanted a privatized system; they’re getting it. It’s no accident that New Vistas-Mountain Laurel was the first local outfit to fold. It was the provider of last resort for the uninsured. Not much profit in taking care of those folks. RIP.

 

The public funding burden for health care is rolling downhill. In Washington they choke Medicaid and Medicare budgets, citing deficits caused by tax cuts and the $500 billion spent so far in Iraq and Afghanistan. Raleigh doesn’t want increased financial responsibility for healthcare costs. Let the locals take care of themselves. So now indigent care will presumably be funded by increased health insurance premiums (allowing those who treat the uninsured and underinsured to recoup their losses) and by increased property taxes.

 

But local governments can also punt. This has been Buncombe County’s approach to funding indigent mental healthcare. In Fiscal Year 2006, it ranked 76th out of 100 among North Carolina counties in per capita general fund allocations for mental health, substance abuse, and developmental disability services. In effect, this shifts more costs to the private sector and back to the state budget. Troubled kids can be cared for in the public schools. Troubled adults can go to jail or prison.

 

I’d love to vote against [Democrat] Bruce Goforth this fall, but I can’t. His opponent, [Republican] Eric Gorny, is in favor of a Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR). If enacted, state spending could only be increased to reflect inflation and increases in population. Anything extra would require a popular vote. The State of Colorado pioneered TABOR in 1992. It was extremely effective. By 2001, Colorado had dropped from 35th to 49th in state spending as a share of personal income for K-12 education and from 35th to 48th in spending for higher education. During that same time period, the state fell from 23rd to 48th in access to prenatal healthcare. Between 1991 and 2004, the proportion of low-income children without health insurance doubled in Colorado, a feat catapulting the state into last place nationally. Coloradans have been so impressed by these results that they voted in 2005 to suspend TABOR for five years (See: http://www.cbpp.org/ssl-series.htm).

 

We’re used to not reading the news accounts of unrest associated with the imposition of so-called “free market” policies in third world countries. Though we’re still narcotized by tax cuts and a corporate media loathe to encourage thinking — AC-T excepted — the third world is coming to our towns, and not just in the persons of Mexican workers. In terms of healthy life expectancy for its citizens, the United States ranked lower than Canada, Israel, and all of Western Europe except Cyprus and Turkey in the 2002 World Health Report. Infant mortality in our country is higher than in Cuba: http://www.marchofdimes.com/peristats/iim.aspx

 

More of the same is on the way. When you read the heartrending reports of mentally disabled people shut out of services, dying, or committing heinous crimes in Western North Carolina, take a deep breath and turn the page. It’s only the sound of a social service drowning in Grover Norquist’s bathtub.          

                        NOT ALL BLACK 

Republicans had hoped to campaign statewide on the issues surrounding Speaker Black.  It is not working as Republicans had planned: 

Political corruption surrounding one of North Carolina's most powerful Democrats, House Speaker Jim Black, seemed a winning issue for Republicans looking to take control of the House in this year's election.

 

State and federal investigations -- and indictments of Black's associates -- have snapped at the speaker's heels for a year. "House for Sale" signs, implying that Black acted on legislation to help big donors, popped up on lawns.

 

For a time, it seemed enough to help Republicans win the four additional seats they need to control the 120-member House. That would enable them to shift the priorities in a state government that, except for a two-year period when Black shared the top House job with a Republican, has been under Democratic control for the past eight years.

 

But political operatives of both parties say Black doesn't seem to be the drag on Democratic candidates that Republicans had hoped for. Black's face has popped up in some unexpected places, such as a coastal Senate district, but it has been hard for Republicans to tie Black to individual candidates.

 

"Jim Black is an issue. He's not a silver-bullet issue," said Bill Peaslee, chief of staff for the state GOP. "It doesn't seem to have resonated to the extent that we would like."  

                        TWO WEEKS  

Two weeks to election.  Where do Democrats in North Carolina stand? 

In TPJ’s estimation: 

Democrats will capture the 11^th Congressional District.  Democrat Heath Shuler, ahead in the few polls that have been published, is waging an excellent campaign and he has the funding to finish.  The Wall Street Journal recently published an article tying Rep. Taylor’s insertion of “ear marks” (provisions for federal spending) into Federal legalization that favored his personal business interests or those of his supporters.  In this political climate, it is not the issue a candidate wants to defend immediately prior to Election Day.   

Larry Kissell is running a surprisingly aggressive insurgent campaign in the 8^th District without substantial financial support from the national Democratic Party.   The question is whether Kissell can surprise the pundits.  If there is a Democratic tsunami Election Day, this could be a District that falls to Democrats. 

In the State Senate, only a handful of races are genuinely at issue.  In the end, we assess that the 29 to 21 advantage for Democrats in the Senate may not change or either Party could have a net gain of one seat.  However, Republicans are not in a position to seriously challenge majority control of the State Senate.     

In the State House, only some 16 seats are marginally competitive.  There are highly competitive races in less than 10 House Districts.  Even Republicans perceive that they have not mounted a campaign to retake majority control: 

Things can change quickly in politics, and Election Day is still more than two weeks away. But instead of talking about what they would do with a controlling majority in the House, Republicans are fighting to keep the 57 seats they have.

 

"Our caucus is in a rebuilding mode," Gillespie said. "If we don't [take control] this time, we'll do it in '08." . . .

 

In recent elections, North Carolina Republicans have not kept pace with Democrats in raising money for legislative candidates. Infighting in Republican ranks has hampered organizational efforts and recruiting of candidates. Fraud and bribery convictions in Washington and discontent with the Iraq war appear to be setting a foundation for a big Democratic year nationwide.

 

"This fall, it looks like Democrats have a greater likelihood of keeping power than Republicans have of seizing power," said John N. Davis, executive director of NCFREE, a business-funded group that monitors state politics. 

In reports TPJ has received from across the State, we perceive that Republicans are experiencing a problem with funding. Democrats are principally using direct mail to reach voters and are contacting voters multiple times.  Republicans seem not to be keeping pace with solicitations; either in the number of Districts or the intensity of voter contacts.   

The turnout in North Carolina will be very light.  It appears Republicans are viewing the election as a turnout of their base – but they are not as energetic as 2004.  We believe that the Democrats will hold the four seat majority in the State House; and possibly pick up as many as three seats – IF Democrats turn out the vote.  

                        THE LOTTERY  

The North Carolina Education Lottery has made its first transfer of money to public schools in North Carolina: 

Gov. Mike Easley announced Thursday that as a result of the first quarterly transfer from the North Carolina Education Lottery, $95 million is available to help build new schools, cut class size in the early grades and provide higher education scholarships for needy students. Since the lottery started on March 30, a total of $145 million has been raised for education.

 

State law requires that at least 50 percent of the total proceeds from the lottery be paid out in prizes, no more than 8 percent for administrative costs, 7 percent to retailers and the remaining 35 percent go to education. Of the funds for education, 50 percent goes to cutting class size in early grades to 18 students per teacher and to the More at Four program for at-risk pre-kindergarten children, 40 percent for school construction and 10 percent for need-based scholarships for college, university and community college students in North Carolina. 

While lottery proceeds are not divided equally among the counties, the first quarterly transfer is slightly less than 1 Million Dollars for each North Carolina County.  

                        PESSIMISTIC REPUBLICANS  

Republican candidates across the State have been portraying the Democratic controlled General Assembly as unrestrained “spenders.”  At several campaign events that TPJ has attended, Republicans go so far as to state that the budget the Democrats passed will founder and programs will have to be cut because tax revenues will not match the budget.  

Wrong (emphasis added)! 

North Carolina's tax collections continue to outpace projections after generating a record surplus last year . . . .

 

Enduring growth in corporate tax receipts helped North Carolina collect $85 million to $90 million more than expected though the fiscal quarter that ended Sept. 30, according to legislative fiscal analysts.

 

That's 2 percent more than the General Assembly projected in July when it approved an $18.9 billion budget for the year. It's also slightly higher than first quarter surpluses from the past two years.

 

"I'm tickled that we ... have some good news," said Rep. Jim Crawford, D-Granville, one of the chief budget-writers in the House. 

It is very important that Democrats start challenging Republicans on the misinformation that they are spreading on this and a number of other issues.  No one knows what revenue collections will be in six months, but thus far, the Democratic budget is spot on.

TAR HEEL DEM CELLAR