Posted on 01/14/2010 7:12:25 PM PST by MestaMachine
NORTH CAROLINA ELECTION CENTRAL
We need names, positions, platforms, news articles, statements, pictures. We need to separate the RINOS from the Conservatives, and most of all, we need to get the liberals of either party OUT!
We can do this if you help. I have started this thread. All you have to do is contribute a little time and a little research. Help us help this country, and between us, we WILL take our country back!
Let's Do It!!!
Mike Minter, Business Leader and Former Carolina Panther, Endorses Lou Huddleston for Congress (Conservative NC)
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Lou Huddleston, Republican candidate for North Carolina's Eighth Congressional District, today announced that Mike Minter, a North Carolina business leader and former All-Pro safety of the Carolina Panthers, has endorsed his campaign against freshman Congressman Larry Kissell.
"Now more than ever we need common sense, conservative leadership in Congress," Minter said. "For this reason, I am proud to support Lou Huddleston for North Carolina's Eighth Congressional District. I believe that Lou is the candidate who, once elected, is most capable of seeing that our shared vision for a more fiscally responsible and accountable federal government is fulfilled."
Minter, a Cabarrus County resident who now manages a successful real estate company, has established himself as an active community leader, lending his support to a number of local charitable causes. Minter spent his entire ten year NFL career with the Carolina Panthers, retiring in 2007 as the team's all-time leader in tackles, fumble recoveries, and interception returns for touchdowns.
"I am proud to have Mike Minter's support. Mike is a dedicated advocate for our local communities and he understands how important it is to get the Eighth Congressional District back on track," Huddleston said. "I look forward to having Mike on my team as we tackle the challenges facing hardworking North Carolina families."
More campaign updates (Squall Lines)
The Brunswick Beacon notes some legislative announcements here. Democrat Rep. Dewey Hill will run for reelection in the 20th District, which Civitas rates as a D-9 seat. Republican Tristan Patterson plans to make a go of it, anyway.
Meanwhile, Sen. Julia Boseman responds to the argument that past legal problems make her a questionable candidate for district court judge.
WECT reports that Brian Moore, a Wilmington attorney who is unaffiliated, will run for the New Hanover Clerk of Court seat to be vacated by Brenda Tucker. In Pender County, it’s the chairman of the county commission, Jimmy Tate, who is running for clerk of court. He’s a Democrat; the current clerk, Robert Kilroy, is a Republican.
Challengers' ties to Rep. Mackey spur accusations (Charlotte Observer)
Three Democratic legislators from Mecklenburg County are gearing up for primary challenges - and some suspect that fellow Democratic lawmaker Nick Mackey may be behind them.
State Sen. Malcolm Graham and Reps. Beverly Earle and Becky Carney all expect May primaries after candidate filing opens Feb. 8.
Mackey denies having anything to do with recruiting the challengers, though one is his former legislative aide and another is a former associate from his years at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
Colleagues aren't necessarily buying it.
"It's not very kind, it's kind of weird," Graham said Tuesday.
Earle, who has never faced a primary over her eight terms, said, "A lot of other folks are wondering ... why he would do this especially at this particular time."
"It's just such a coincidence" that they're Mackey's associates, she said.
Mackey acknowledges that he knows the challengers and even said he would support them. But he said he did not recruit them.
"It's offensive to me for someone to say 'Nick Mackey did this,'" he said. "They don't have any basis to say it."
It's unusual for incumbents, especially long-term incumbents, to face a challenge from within their own party. Primaries force incumbents to spend money they could otherwise use in a general election. It's more unusual for incumbents to believe a colleague from their own party is behind a challenge.
Talk of Mackey's connection to the challengers picked up during Monday's Uptown Democratic Forum, when he shared a table with two of them. His former legislative assistant, John Montgomery, announced that he's challenging Graham. And Rocky Bailey, who served in the Police Department with Mackey, announced his run against Earle.
Mackey friend Kim Ratliff is challenging Carney. Neither she, Montgomery or Bailey could be reached Tuesday.
"I feel like he's behind some of these candidates, he's involved with it," Carney said of Mackey. "All these people ... have ties to Nick Mackey."
"I have recruited no one," Mackey said. "I've got my own race to run."
Another former Mackey associate is challenging Democratic Sheriff Chipp Bailey. Bailey was appointed sheriff in early 2008 after the state Democratic Party threw out a disputed party election in which Mackey beat Bailey. County commissioners went on to install Bailey.
Graham supported Bailey in that contest. In 2008, Earle backed Mackey's legislative opponent, then-Rep. Drew Saunders.
Chipp Bailey's challenger is Antoine Ensley. He was a former police officer with Mackey. He said Mackey had nothing to do with his decision to run.
"I'm just flabbergasted that somebody would indicate that I needed to consult with Mr. Mackey to consider running for sheriff," he said.
For his part, Mackey said he doesn't mind people talking about him.
"It's good to be talked about or thought about," he said, "because once they forget about you, your time is up."
NHC Sheriff's Deputy running for Congress (WECT 6)
WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) - A second Republican has thrown his hat in the ring to challenge Congressman Mike McIntyre for the 7th Congressional District seat in the House of Representatives this year.
Ilario Pantano plans to run for the Republican nomination for Congress this year. Pantano is a former Marine Corps officer and Sheriff's Deputy from New Hanover County.
Pantano's announcement points out that after he witnessed the terrorist attack on 9/11, Pantano enlisted in the Marines and led a platoon of Marines in Fallujah. He says he killed two terrorists and was later accused of murder. He was cleared after a military hearing, but received Jihadist death threats, so he left the Marines and became a Sheriff's Deputy.
Pantano wrote a book about his experiences and has been a guest on several national news programs.
Pantano joins Will Breazeale as the two candidates so far vying for the GOP nomination to challenge the incumbent McIntyre, who is a Democrat.
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Two GOP Challengers Have More Cash Than McHenry (CQ Politics)
Every fundraising quarter there are a handful incumbents who raise eyebrows by allowing a pesky challenger to outraise them. But during the 4th quarter, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) accomplished the even rarer feat of being outraised by two challengers.
And what's even more interesting is that both those challengers are fellow Republicans.
McHenry raised about $112,000 during the fourth quarter of 2009 and had about $149,000 in cash on hand as of Dec. 31.
Dentist and Iredell County Commissioner Scott Keadle topped those totals with about $270,000 in receipts from October to December and about $274,000 in the bank at the end of 2009.
Another Republican, entrepreneur Vance Patterson, reported $250,000 in receipts and the same amount in cash on hand at the end of 2009.
Both challengers were able to outperform McHenry in the money chase by reaching deep into their own pockets.
Keadle -- who filed for the race in September and also reported more receipts and cash on hand than the Congressman at the end of the third quarter -- has loaned his campaign some $485,000 so far this cycle with $235,000 of that coming in the fourth quarter.
Patterson, who filed for the race in late December, loaned his campaign all of the $250,000 he reported raising.
McHenry, meanwhile, would have had more money in the bank if he hadn't spent $50,000 last quarter repaying himself for previous campaign loans, (which he still had $150,000 worth of on Dec. 31). McHenry also raised more money in the fourth quarter of 2009 than any of his four other North Carolina GOP House colleagues.
But regardless of those circumstances the fact remains that with a little over four months to go before the North Carolina primary McHenry was in the third place in the 10th district money chase.
Keadle -- who earned the Republican nomination to run against Democratic Rep. Mel Watt (N.C.) in 1998 but went on to lose that race by 14 points -- said he's conducted polling that shows McHenry is vulnerable to a challenge from the right.
"The Congressman talks to the right but doesn't do anything to the right," Keadle said. "He voted to increase the budget in 2006. ... He was talking about steroids in baseball when he should have been talking about sealing the borders.
McHenry's spokesman Josh Kahn said the Congressman's campaign is not worried about raising the funds it will need in the primary.
"In light of the tough economy, we're pleased with our fundraising and our chances in the next election," Kahn said. "Patrick's done what he said he'd do, and the voters in Western North Carolina know that. He's just as upset about what's happening in Washington as his constituents are."
CQ Politics currently rates the race as Safe Republican.
Eichenbaum Wins Hometown Straw Poll in Cherokee County (Thunder Pig)
According to Dr. Dan Eichenbaum [link] he has won the straw poll at an event hosted by the 9-12 Project group he helped form.
Here are the numbers:
91 Dan Eichenbaum 61.49%
38 Kenny West 25.68%
16 Greg Newman 10.81%
02 Ed Krause 1.35%
01 Undecided 0.68%
This is the second straw poll of which I am aware. The first was conducted at an event hosted by the Buncombe County Republican Party on December 14, 2009. Here are the results from that poll...
37 Dan Eichenbaum 39.36%
22 Ed Krause 23.40%
19 Scott Stump 20.21%
12 Kenny West 12.77%
3 Undecided 3.19%
1 Greg Newman 1.06%
We won't have a full picture of what is going on until we have an event at which all the candidates appear together, which may be later this month or sometime in March, if what I am hearing through the grapevine is true.
Kissell loses supporter, gains opponent (Charlotte Observer)
The woman who chaired Democratic Rep. Larry Kissell's two congressional campaigns has turned against him.
Dannie Montgomery, a teacher from Anson County who served as first vice chair of the N.C. Democratic Party, said in a news release today that Kissell "has turned his back on the grassroots supporters who propelled him to office."
She said Kissell has alienated some African American leaders in the 8th District, which could dampen black turnout. She said she has encouraged Charlotte lawyer Chris Kouri to challenge Kissell. Kouri ran unsuccessfully for the seat in 2002 against Republican Robin Hayes.
Her defection is the latest sign of liberal disaffection with Kissell. His vote against a Democratic health care bill last fall angered many on the left. But how much harm it caused him is questionable.
A polls last month by Raleigh's Public Policy Polling found that just 29 percent of his constituents knew how he voted on health care.
"That finding is a good reminder that the average voter does not follow politics very closely," poll director Tom Jensen said at the time. "Kissell ... may find himself in better shape once more voters in his district become aware of how he voted on health care. His approval with those who know he voted against it is 52 percent compared to 44 percent with those who think he supported the bill. In a district where a majority are opposed to the Democratic health care plan he cast the right vote for his political future."
Meanwhile a Democrat from Fayetteville plans to challenge Kissell. Writer Nancy Shakir said she's disappointed in his votes.
Through a spokeswoman, Kissell declined comment.
“WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH ! I wanted a moonbat Marxist !”
I think it will be over for Kissell if the Black Political Caucus gets behind an opponent.
Of the Republicans running in this district, which is the best one with the strongest shot at winning ?
Looking at numbers from 2003, which are the most recent that I can find, blacks made up 25% of registered voters in the district and 40% of Dems. I’m sure that’s much higher after the registration drives in Charlotte (and I guess Fayetteville) in 2008.
But the Charlotte portion of the district doesn’t have *that* many blacks, does it? I thought that Watt’s NC-12 got the black areas and the NC-08 got the white liberal areas. The 2008 voter-registration drive in Charlotte may have *decreased* the black percentage of registered voters for all we know.
As for Fayetteville, I think it is split with two other districts, but I don’t know which district got the black areas.
I would guess that most of the black voters in the NC-08 are in rural counties like Anson, Richmond, Scotland and Hoke. But I think that you’re probably correct that, overall, over 40% of Democrat primary voters will be black.
I’m still not settled on that. The only ones who look like they could run a serious campaign are Harold Johnson, Lou Huddleston and Hal Jordan, and they’re pretty generic on the issues from what I’ve seen.
If I had to give one of them the edge for potential, it’d be Johnson, who was a long-time popular sportscaster on WSOC, whose signal reached most of the district. But I’m still not sure how well that kind of popularity translates to votes.
I stand corrected. I’m still surprised that Watt agreed to losing so many black precincts in Charlotte.
With the huge migration of blacks to Charlotte (the 3rd biggest destination in the country for blacks at this point, IIRC), the growth in the other precincts he had made up for it, plus he dumped a bunch of white areas in other counties.
Third District Face-Off (Truth or Dare)
The Jacksonville Daily News is reporting that Onslow County resident Sperby Piner will challenge Walter Jones on May 4th for the Republican nomination. He joins likely challenger Joe McLaughlin also of Onslow County and Bob Cavanaugh of Carteret County. Jones is vulnerable again this year due to his ever evolving views. With turnout expected to be heavier than normal for an off-year election, will the voters of the his district finally give Jones the heave-ho? Will the TEA Party effect cause a ripple in the fabric of NC District 3? While Mother Jones may be fond of Walter, she won’t be voting on May 4th. With a field of four, will Jones garner enough votes to ward off a second primary? Only time will tell.
Fasten your seatbelts, District 3, we’re about to encounter some rough air.
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