Free Republic

ASHEBORO, N.C. – A memorial has been finalized for a Congressional candidate from Asheboro who died suddenly Monday. A public visitation for friends will be held for Keith Crisco at Pugh Funeral Home, on Sunset Avenue in Asheboro, Thursday from 6-8 p.m. Funeral services will be Friday at 2 p.m. at First United Methodist. ... An official cause of death has not been released, but a campaign insider told ABC 11 in Raleigh that Crisco tripped on a rug and fell backwards, hitting his head.

The North Carolina Senate race is now almost dead even. The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely North Carolina Voters finds that State House Speaker Thom Tillis, the winner of Tuesday’s Republican primary, earns 45% support to incumbent Democratic Senator Kay Hagan’s 44%. Five percent (5%) prefer some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.(To see survey question wording, click here.)

“American Idol” runner-up Clay Aiken was declared the winner of his tight House Democratic primary in North Carolina on Tuesday, a day after his opponent suddenly died. Aiken and Keith Crisco had been vying for the Democratic nomination to take on Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) She is favored to keep the seat. Aiken was leading Crisco by fewer than 400 votes, and both candidates had been hovering around the 40-percent mark needed to avoid a runoff. The 71-year-old Crisco died Monday after suffering from injuries from a fall. Aiken’s team said they’d received word he’d been planning to concede Tuesday.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte-Mecklenburg police are investigating after they said a robbery suspect was shot and killed by the man he was trying to rob Monday night in northwest Charlotte. Officers told Channel 9 that around 9 p.m. they received an armed robbery call in the 1100 block of Jordans Pond Lane. When police arrived, the robbery victim told them that while he was outside his house, a man with a gun -- who police have identified as 22-year-old Darlanski Sherrill -- approached him and forced him into his house and demanded money from him. Officers said that during the...

Keith Crisco, who was locked in a battle with former "American Idol" contestant Clay Aiken in a Democratic primary race for North Carolina's 2nd House district, died suddenly at his home Monday. Aiken, who was ahead of 71-year-old Crisco by 369 votes at the time of his death, said on Facebook Monday afternoon that he was suspending all campaign activities "as we pray for his family and friends." "I am stunned and deeply saddened by Keith Crisco’s death. Keith came from humble beginnings," Aiken said. "No matter how high he rose –- to Harvard, to the White House and to...

A hotly contested Democratic congressional primary in North Carolina ended in a standoff last week when the race between former American Idol contestant Clay Aiken and Asheboro businessman Keith Crisco resulted in a draw. With just 369 votes separating the two candidates, the race was slated to head to a runoff. On Monday, however, it was confirmed that Crisco suddenly passed away. “Information is incomplete,” the Asheboro Courier-Tribune reported on Monday. “However, early information indicates he suffered injuries from a fall around 1 p.m. at his home at 1263 Thayer Drive in Asheboro. He was reported dead at the scene...

Clay Aiken’s opponent in the Democratic primary for North Carolina’s Second Congressional District seat, Keith Crisco, died today, according to the company he owned, Asheboro Elastics Corporation. The textile entrepreneur and former state commerce secretary died at his home around 1:30 p.m., the company said. He had fallen, a spokesperson for the company told ABC News, but no other information was immediately available. At the time of his death, the race was still too close to call. Aiken was leading Crisco by just 369 votes

Keith Crisco died suddenly on MondayBy Craig Jarvis Keith Crisco, former state Commerce secretary and a Democratic candidate for the 2nd Congressional District, died on Monday. Details were not immediately available, but the Courier-Tribune in Asheboro reported that he died suddenly at his home from a fall. . . . Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/05/12/3856392/keith-crisco-dead-at-71.html#storylink=cpy Aiken has won by default.

RALEIGH, N.C. - North Carolina Congressional candidate Keith Crisco died suddenly at his home on Monday, WNCN confirmed. MOREAdditional Links A woman at his company, Asheboro Elastics Corp. in Asheboro, confirmed that he died at his home Monday around 1 p.m. She said employees at the company were being told what had happened. Crisco had faced Clay Aiken in a tense battle for the Democratic nomination in the 2nd Congressional District.

Six people who are in the United States illegally joined an immigration attorney (Skype image on the wall) to discuss the recommendations made by the group #Not1More that would provide amnesty to millions. To mark May Day last week, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) invited people who are in the country illegally to Capitol Hill where they released a list of executive orders they believe President Barack Obama should put in place, including stopping all deportations and bringing back deportees who have family here. At the event, held in the Canon Office Building, seven people who are part of a “Blue...

CHARLOTTE, NC, May 9, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A North Carolina abortionist who was caught on video saying he aborts “ugly black babies” has been arrested for allegedly raping and imprisoning a woman inside his Charlotte home. A local woman told police that Dr. Artush “Ron” Virmani lured her to his home on Charlestowne Manor Drive on Wednesday afternoon so they could discuss a business deal, but then raped her and refused to let her leave.

The Tea Party is Far from Dead --in North Carolina or Anywhere Else May 08, 2014 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Some election news out of North Carolina. You know I don't get involved in primaries. I never have gotten involved in primaries. From my standpoint, it's always been a -- not losing proposition. It's just policy-wise, basically driven by my instincts,stay away from primaries. So I didn't talk much about what was going on in North Carolina, and there was a lot going on in North Carolina. North Carolina is thought to hold the key election determining who will control...

An analytic chemistry professor at public, taxpayer-funded East Carolina University (ECU) has failed miserably in his bizarre effort to prevent students from thanking God in personal statements, which will be read during a departmental graduation ceremony on Friday. The professor, Eli Hvastkovs, explicitly banned students from giving any credit to God in an email obtained by Campus Reform. He ordered students to “provide me something written in the third person” in a personal statement that discusses future plans or “thanks someone.” However, Hvastkovs wrote: You can’t thank God. I’m sorry about this — and I don’t want to have to outline the reasons...

What is the GOP establishment thinking? The establishment, with some help from one of our newest lefty billionaires and the left leaning media, helped reelect the least qualified candidate in the 2nd District Republican primary. They failed the 2nd District and America. They overstepped their pledged boundaries of neutrality during the primary and again demonstrated themselves to be part of the problem. Local petty political gate-keepers assisted their poorly qualified incumbent in ways that require they be removed from their volunteer Chairmanship positions.

CONCORD, NC, May 7, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The home improvement television network HGTV has canceled a proposed reality show after a left-wing website printed an “exposé” of the evangelical stars' pro-life, pro-family activism. Flip It Forward, scheduled to debut on Home and Garden Television this October, would feature brothers David and Jason Benham helping down-on-their-luck families purchase a dream home they thought they could never afford. “In each episode, the guys help a deserving family find a fixer-upper and transform it into their forever home - with a healthy dose of sibling rivalry between the brothers along the way,” HGTV...

The apparent winner of a register of deeds seat in North Carolina says he’ll sign same-sex marriage licenses despite a state ban against gay unions. Former Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton narrowly won a Democratic primary Tuesday for the Orange County register of deeds and it appears that he will have no opposition in the general election in November. Chilton said he doesn’t see how North Carolina’s law banning gay marriage will survive constitutional analysis, especially since federal courts have ruled against similar bans in other states. …

After a big promotional push by ABC and NBC, Democratic House candidate Clay Aiken leads his primary opponent by 372 votes out of 28,000 cast on Tuesday. According to Good Morning America on Wednesday, the "American Idol congressional candidate" may pull out a razor thin victory. Co-host Lara Spencer enthused, "Clay Aiken in the public eye for almost a decade, making headlines for his songs, his personal life and now a run at the United States Congress."

Establishment favorite Thom Tillis’s win in the North Carolina Republican Senate primary Tuesday night actually indicates the Tea Party has won the war with the establishment, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) argued on Wednesday. “The Tea Party has won the civil war that has been raging inside the Republican Party,” she told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast on Wednesday. Wasserman Schultz said that Tillis "is no longer, if he ever was, an establishment candidate,” having been pulled to the right during his time as speaker of the North Carolina House. “As the Speaker of the...

As Kay Hagan, a Democratic senator from North Carolina, pondered her reelection campaign this year, she faced an array of possible Republican opponents. . . . . Hagan, in a ploy Democratic candidates have increasingly employed in recent years, waded right in. She used her campaign funds to run anti-Tillis ads on conservative talk-radio stations and send mailers that targeted Republican households. The ads attacked Tillis on ethics and for having once said Obamacare was "a great idea" (Tillis says he was being sarcastic). . . . Patriot Majority was styled to seem like a Tea Party group, with its...

Controversy has once again hit the campus of UNC-Wilmington. This time it's not my fault. The controversy is actually the fault of a student. His crime is simple: He decided to behave like a feminist behaves every day on campuses all across America. Unfortunately for him, he chose to do so without the proper genitalia and without the approval of the UNCW Women's Resource Center. I was introduced to the controversy shortly after a student of mine finished taking her final exam of the semester. After she had left my 2 pm exam, she came into my 3:30 class and,...