While the Primary race between Clinton and Obama has gotten pretty vicious lately, I was always convinced it's nothing compared to the stuff Republicans would be spewing around the general election. Turns out I didn't have to wait that long, thanks to the NC GOP and their head witch, Linda Daves.
Even John McCain and the Republican National Congress declared today how deplorable the latest stunt of the NC repugs is.
From The Dome:A new TV ad from the N.C. Republican Party tries to link two Democratic candidates for governor to Barack Obama's controversial former minister.
"For 20 years, Barack Obama sat in his pew, listening to his pastor," the ad says, segueing into video of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, David Ingram reports.
The ad continues, "Now, Bev Perdue and Richard Moore endorse Barack Obama. They should know better. He's just too extreme for North Carolina."
The ad is titled "Extreme." Republican chairwoman Linda Daves of Charlotte appears briefly at the end.
I know this ad is just trying to use the old politics of fear, but the scariest moment in the ad is without a doubt the few seconds at the end where Linda Daves, Chair of the NCGOP, shows up. The Rev. Wright definitely has nothing on her. She could really use a make over.
The ad is of course extremely far fetched, calling out someone because a friend of a friend said something we think is wrong. For all my "moderate" Republican friends in the County i have the following question: Just because you went to a bunch of meetings of the Republican men's Club in the last few years, where Coy Privette and Ric Starnes where always prominently present and without a doubt said a bunch of crazy stuff, does that mean you agree with them and hence mean you're crazy too? Did you leave the Republican men's club? And did you never go back again?
The NCGOP ad is not only disgustingly playing into racial fears, it's also a very slimy way of trying to get some money for more dirty shenanigans that are no doubt heading our way. The ad starts and ends with a plea for donations. This ad is no more than a desperate attempt to get more money for the cash strapped NC Republicans and they're willing to pull the race card to do it.
In a sign that the Republican Presidential nominee and the national republican party have at least a quarter of a brain, they both publicly distanced themselves from the ad and asked the NCGOP not to run it anymore.
McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee for president, sent N.C. GOP Chairwoman Linda Daves an e-mail today about what he called an "offensive advertisement.""The television advertisement you are planning to air degrades our civics and distracts us from the very real differences we have with the Democrats. In the strongest terms, I implore you to not run this advertisement."
"The RNC has been in contact with the NC GOP and communicated that we do not believe the ad is appropriate or helpful and have asked that they refrain from running it.”
The NCGOP is refusing to stop airing the ad."This is not about the RNC," Daves said, reports David Ingram. "It is about North Carolina, our values and two Democrat(sic) candidates who are out of synch with the values of North Carolina."
Values indeed. Jesse Helms is alive and well in North Carolina.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Disgusting
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Voting starts today!
Today our local Board Of Elections opens its doors for the early "one-stop" voting process.
You can vote early every weekday until May 2nd from 8.30 am - 5 pm at the Board of Elections offices on 53 Corban Ave SE in Downtown Concord.
There is also one Saturday you can vote early, May 3rd, from 8.30 am - 1 pm. This also the last day to vote early.
During early voting you can also register to vote and vote at the same time, in case you missed the voter registration deadline, this is your one chance to still vote!
Same day voter registration is NOT possible on election day, May 6th.
Same day voter registration is meant for new voters, they won't allow you to change your party affiliation at this time.
If you're 17 but turn 18 before the November election, you can register and vote in the primary during early voting even though you're only 17 at this time!
Check out the Cabarrus County Board of Elections website to find out all about same day registration.
You can also look at the Democratic sample ballots on the same website.
Since several folks have asked me who i would vote for in the Democratic Primary, I will put up several posts in the following days explaining who I would vote for and why. I'm pretty sure you know by now who i would vote for in the big Presidential nominee race :-)
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
The writing on the wall
When it comes to voter registrations there's a very remarkable trend lately.
In the state of North Carolina more than 120,000 new voters have registered since the end of 2007.
Roughly half of the new voters have registered as Democrats, a little more than a third are unaffiliated and about 13 percent are Republicans, according to figures from the State Board of Elections.
Overall, the number of voters increased by about 2 percent to 5.7 million, Rob Christensen reports in the News&Observer.
"It started back in late December," said Johnnie McLean, the deputy state elections director. "It's obviously due to the presidential primaries."For the week of March 23rd - March 29th, there were 12,000+ new voters registered in NC. Of those, 7,500 registered as Democrats, 4,500 registered as Unaffiliated, 173 registered as Republicans.
In Cabarrus County the trend is remarkable as well.
According to numbers from the Cabarrus County Board of Elections, local Democrats have closed the gap in registrations with the Republican Party by more than 1,100 voters so far. These numbers do not yet include Friday April 11th which was the last day to register. Democrats brought in another big number of registrations that day.
In August of 2007 there were 33,456 Democrats vs. 40,837 Republicans in Cabarrus County, a difference of 7,381.
As of April 10th, there are 34,950 Democrats vs. 41,752 Republicans in our County, a difference of 6,260.
I've personally helped register hundreds of new voters in several Cabarrus County High Schools these days and the pattern was always the same: 20% Republican, 35% Democrat, 45% Unaffiliated. Several kids told me it's definitely not "cool" anymore to register Republican, even though I was completely non-partisan and never told them what Party I belonged to.
Of course it's important to remember that we're still 6 months away from the general election and I fully expect this trend to continue until then.
Something is about to happen in November.
Read More......
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Back from the beach
There's nothing better than letting the sea breeze blow all your worries and stress away for a week on Topsail Island.
But as you can see, even at the beach it's hard to escape politics :-)
Anyway, it's good to be back and for the next month I'll be giving it My all to win this Democratic Primary.
If you want to help, drop by the next meeting of Cabarrus for Obama this Wednesday!
Check out this link for all the details.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Black is the new president, bitch
In case you missed Saturday Night Live yesterday, check out the following hilarious video.
And don't forget to read Barack Obama's personal answer to that whole preacher firestorm.
I'd love to see all of you at the second meeting of "Cabarrus for Obama" this Tuesday March 18th at 7 pm at the Sweet Pea Cafe in downtown Concord.
At our first meeting 65 people showed up. Join us!
For more information and to RSVP follow this link.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Obama has already won against McCain.
By proxy that is.
Democrat Bill Foster, endorsed by Barack Obama, has snatched former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's congressional seat in a closely watched special election in Illinois that gave the longtime Republican district to the Democrats. Foster has won 52 percent of the vote compared to 48 percent for Republican Jim Oberweis.
That result was amazing given the 14th District's clear Republican lean.
President Bush won the district, which spans into the far western suburbs of Chicago, with 55 percent in 2004 and 54 percent in 2000.
Hastert won reelection easily for more than two decades.
Bill Foster was endorsed by Barack Obama, and ran on a similar platform of "change". Obama made a TV ad praising Foster. Meanwhile, McCain campaigned for the Republican candidate Jim Oberweis, and fundraised for his campaign.
Watch the Obama ad for Bill Foster:
Foster's win should demonstrate to the Democratic leadership that Obama can help elect more Democrats to Congress, even in formerly "safe" Republican sites.
The defeat is a major setback for the NRCC and House Republicans. The NRCC spent nearly $1.3 million defending the seat, a significant percentage of the $6.4 million the committee showed on hand at the end of January. That is a major investment of limited resources, only to
come up empty.
House Republicans, already dispirited by the loss of their majority in the 2006 election and more than two dozen retirements within their ranks since then, will likely take this defeat hard. Watch to see how many of them will retire over the coming weeks as vulnerable members take the Illinois special election as a sign of things to come in the fall.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Canvassing in a winter wonderland
I returned on Tuesday from Ohio, where I volunteered for Sen. Obama's campaign in the frozen city of Cleveland. Hundreds of volunteers from all over the country descended upon the state to help out the Obama campaign.
What follows is the story of my journey in a winter wonderland.
Getting to Cleveland was no small feat. As the person who I stayed with told me, "February is the worst month to come to Ohio". I wish they had told me sooner.
I had planned on getting to Cleveland in one day. Including all the necessary stops, the trip should take about 10 hours under normal weather circumstances. The problem is that the weather was anything but normal, although it might have been normal under Ohio standards.
It was getting dark when I crossed the Ohio river and pretty soon after that it started snowing. With a high of 25 degrees the snow wasn't going to disappear anytime soon. I was tired and didn't feel like driving in the dark and snow anymore, so I stopped in Cambridge, OH and checked into a hotel.
The next morning i was looking forward to a mere 2 hour drive to my final destination. When I opened up the curtains of my room i found out that everything was covered in a thick blanket of snow and it was snowing even heavier than the night before. I could see the highway in the distance though and traffic seemed to be moving right along, so I decided to hit the road.
For the first 10 miles or so everything was fine, the road was clear, but after a short while it seemed like the snowplows had stopped working. Everything was white and you could not see the road anymore. It snowed even harder now and visibility was reduced. The only thing I could see were the tire tracks made by a truck that was in front of Me.
For the next 3 and a half hours I followed those tracks in what I would describe as "white knuckle driving". At several points my car started beeping and a light started flashing on the dashboard of My Prius, indicating that my tires were slipping. Until I got to Ohio I didn't even know my car had this feature. Hey, at least i learned something.
I got to Cleveland eventually, a day later than planned and a nervous wreck after that drive. The next day the canvassing started.
Saturday morning I reported to the local Obama Headquarters in Lakewood, a suburb on the west side of Cleveland.
As usual (we did the same thing in South Carolina and Illinois) we were asked to visit targeted voters in targeted neighborhoods with personalized door hangers which indicated where people had to go vote.
Because the campaign asked me not to, I can't tell you what neighborhoods and what voters get targeted exactly.
My door to door canvassing brought me to streets on the edge of lake Eerie and allowed me to snap some pictures of this massive, partially frozen, lake with the Cleveland skyline as a backdrop. The temperatures were still freezing. The advantage to this is that canvassing went pretty fast, people tend to not keep their front door open for very long when its 25 degrees outside.
On Sunday and Monday the weather got a lot a warmer, with temperatures reaching 50. The snow melted and roads were clear.
I had originally planned to stay in Ohio until after primary day, but the weather reports indicated that the weather was about to make a turn for the worse so i decided to leave while I still could. On Tuesday morning I headed home. This time I made the trip in one long drive.
On Tuesday afternoon Cleveland got covered in freezing rain. Pretty soon after that it started snowing. It has been snowing ever since and temperatures have yet to get above freezing again. I had escaped just in time.
Even though the results in Ohio weren't what i had hoped for, we didn't do too bad in the City of Cleveland. Obama won 69% of the vote there.
By the way, I didn't just work in Cleveland, I also managed to squeeze in a visit to this little hangout:
Luckily, the next step for me in this drawn out race will be right in my own backyard.
If you want to get involved with the Obama campaign right here in Cabarrus County, please join the "Cabarrus for Obama" group on the official Obama website.
May 6th is primary day!
