News-Record.com

From my desk this weekend:

• The two campaigns are on the phone, and may be dialing you before election day.
  
• More on the Miller-Robinson campaign: ads and debates.
  
• Immigration is among the top 5 issues for voters, says the Elon Poll. So you all can stop looking at me like I’m crazy now.

(Blogger’s Note: You will find several audio files from each candidate at the end of this post, along with some biographical information on each. We will have further coverage of this race, including a Q+A on more issues not represented here and an additional profile of the race, in the paper. Previously: House 59 and House 57.)

The voters ended Earl Jones’ 18-year city council career in 2001, electing a relatively unknown minister to replace the well-known but sometimes controversial figure.

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Jones said with a laugh recently. Jones seemingly can afford to laugh now.

The latest Elon Poll finds that voters are aware of Speaker Jim Black’s ethical problems, but that might not be a deciding factor in the election. (Click here for the poll release and data).

(If you need it: click here for more on the Speaker.)

I think a lot of folks looked at the poll data yesterday and got excited. Half of all people were aware of the Speaker’s problems and that seemed like a lot.

But remember, the data in this poll was gather at the same time as those for Friday’s release. So having a little more than 50 percent of all people be aware of the Black issue (and 25 percent of all respondents saying they’d vote on it) isn’t that strong compared with 70-plus respondents talking about economic, health, immigration and security issues.

What may point to the Speaker’s issues being more of a potent force is that those who are aware of the ongoing saga are more likely to be active voters. So, you could make an argument that the folks who didn’t know about the saga (or the 60 percent of those surveyed who know about black but who didn’t know whether their representative supported Black or not) aren’t the most likely folks to be showing up to the polls.

I suspect the biggest impact of this whole deal may be that it motivates an extra clump of Republicans to show up to the polls. The question is, are any of the state House or Senate races tight enough where those extra few voters are going to make a difference.

Again, like with the first bolus of data from the poll, it may be the unaffiliated voters who are the most interesting.

They were aware of the Black issue in equal numbers to Republican and Democratic voters and were more likely to ad their own “derogatory comment” when first asked about the Black scandal.

So if you believe that some portion of independent voters is truly undecided, and those voters show up to the polls, then maybe that’s where you find another effect from Black’s problems. Perhaps if given a choice between two candidates they don’t recognize, they’ll be more likely to go Republican than Democrat due to the influence of the story. But again, the question becomes whether that group is big enough to make a difference.

The last bit of data from the latest Elon Poll came out this morning, this set on smoking.

Basically, it shows that upwards of 60 percent of North Carolinians would favor some sort of ban on smoking in public places, defined as public buildings, offices, restaurants and bars. There also seemed to be a pretty strong preference among respondents for restaurants that don’t allow smoking, although they seemed decidedly split on whether state law should impose a smoking ban on restaurants and bars without including other buildings.

More to come tomorrow.

...the trial of former lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings drags on, as former lottery board chairman Charles Sanders takes the stand, saying he felt "kicked in the stomach" when he learned Geddings had ties to a lottery vendor.

From today’s paper, my colleague Jason Hardin and I report on the results of a poll that says North Carolinians would back a law banning smoking in public places.

Some linkage:

• A press release from the poll.
  
• The poll data itslef.
  
• The Surgeon General’s report on second hand smoke mentioned in the story.
  
• Americans for Non-Smokers Rights.
  
• Lorillard Tobacco, which is based in GSO.

So, we reported recently that the President was coming to town this month. But we haven’t written much about it since then.

So I’ve gotten a few questions like “is he really coming?”

Officially, the White House won’t acknowledge the President is headed to North Carolina anytime in the near future. They only do his public scheduled for a week in advance.

But I can tell you I’ve talked to more than a few local Republicans who have $1,000 dinner tickets for Oct. 17, and they’re not paying to stare at one another.

...Kevin Geddings said Thursday he thought he was telling the truth when he filled out an ethics disclosure form that made no mention of his work for lottery systems maker Scientific Games Corp.

(Blogger’s Note: You will find several audio files from each candidate at the end of this post, along with some biographical information on each. We will have further coverage of this race, including a Q+A, in the paper. Previously: House 60; House 59 and House 57.)

Update: Audio has been fixed, thanks to web guru Michael Grossman.
Update: To heck with Mike. The sound files are still broken, just in a different way.
Update: Mike is a hero again. It looks like stuff is working.

--------

As much as any individual legislator, Rep. Alma Adams was in the thick of things during the past two-year legislative session. Agree with her or not, the battle to raise the state’s minimum wage was a high profile one and she was one of the chief movers of the legislation.

Update: It appears the audio files are working again. Please let me know if you have problems.

I'm cussing up a storm right now, but you can't hear me. You probably can't hear a whole lot of things that are supposed to be up on our site. Our audio server has been having problems on and off all week and those problems are on again. I’ll let you know when we hear that all is well from the tech guys, but it might be a while.

So if you’re trying to listen to sound files from this or other N+R blogs over the weekend, that may be a problem.

Being a blogger, I guess I would be remiss in not instantly offering some thoughts on John Locke’s blog conference, held in Greensboro this morning. (You can find other views from Ed, Fec, and Guarino.)

In no particular order:

• Scott Johnson of the Powerline blog, famous for the post that debunked the CBS story on Bush’s national guard service, spoke as the keynote. What struck me about how he compiled the information in that post is that it was really a great experiment in distributed reporting like Jay Rosen is attempting.
  
• Johnson told the audience several times that he the national media serve as an arm of the Democratic Party. That sense of mistrust was shared by many members of the audience. Interesting to me about this is that you could hear the flip side of that argument – the press as a tool of the GOP – if you get a group of liberal-leaning bloggers together. I obviously have a dog in this fight, but I don’t think either view is healthy or accurate. It’s what happens when very serious and very real screw-ups on my industry part mix with natural suspicions and complaints about press coverage.
  
• Fec wrote in his review of the session “They came to GSO, but didn’t know anything about us.” I would say you might quibble with that because Sam Hieb lives here and was on a panel. But the panelists were very much focused on national politics, both in terms of their interests and the scope of their writing. It did not seem many of them know about the Greensboro blogging scene or that any of them have much of a sense what a locally-focused civic blogging scene looks like. That’s kind of weird, as Mary Katherin Ham observed, since conservatives believe in smaller federal government and more power at the local level.

As a final note, I’ll wonder out loud whether hold a “conservative” blogging conference doesn’t feed the balkanization of our media market and information stream. If conservatives only trust conservative blogs, liberals the liberal and few folks mistrust everyone, how the heck is anyone going to be able to talk to one another?

All in all, it was an interesting morning. And even though I was one of those MSM guys everyone was griping about, I didn’t feel too despised.

Now for Converge South next weekend.

It is election season, just in case the recent blossom of yard signs hasn’t tipped you off. With about four weeks to go before Nov. 7, I figured now would be a good time to look at what we’ve been doing and what the paper will be doing in terms of legislative elections, state and federal. (For local election news, check out Inside Scoop.

With regard to state legislative races, some of the coverage has already begun right here in my little slice of cyberspace. I’ve posted columns with audio on four Greensboro state house races so far. They are:

• House 57. Pricey Harrison vs. Ron Styers.
  
• House 58. Alma Adams vs. Olga Morgan Wright
  
• House 59. Maggie Jeffus vs. Jim Rumley
  
• House 60. Earl Jones vs. Bill Wright

In addition to the postings here, each of those will get additional coverage in the newspaper (you remember, that rolled up thing that lands in your driveway every morning) over the next month. In all cases, we will have at least what we call an “alternative story form” that gives biographical information, two or three questions and answers and some race analysis.

In some cases we may write more about an individual race as it warrants, or cover an issue that it cutting across campaigns.

We will run something on House District 70, which is in Randolph County.

Rockingham County-based races, including Senate 26 (Republican Phil Berger’s re-election contest against Rick Miller) and House 65, (Democrat Nelson Cole’s re-election bid versus Republican Michael Moore) will be covered for the paper by my colleague Gerald Witt. When those stories run, I’ll post links here.

There are also a few Congressional seats of local interest up for grabs. My colleague Margaret Banks will be doing the heavy lifting on races in the 12th Congressional District (currently held by Mel Watt) and the 6h Congressional District (currently held by Howard Coble).

I will continue to write about the Fightin’ 13th Congressional District race between Democratic incumbent Brad Miller and Republican Vernon Robinson.

There will, of course, be some other things to come up that aren’t listed here. For those, stay tuned.

So, you want to check out the local (Guilford and Rockingham county) candidates for state legislature and Congress? A good place to start is their own web sites. In this list, I’ve given a campaign web site if I can find one. If not, you’ll get an official web site (such as Mel Watt’s Congressional page) and if they have neither, well, your friendly local candidate doesn’t seem to be on the web. (If you know of a campaign site I don’t have listed here, please post it in the comments or e-mail me and I’ll update ASAP.)

Congress

6th Congressional District
Democrat Rory Blake: http://www.blake06.com/Home.asp
Republican Howard Coble: http://www.cobleforcongress.com/

12th Congressional District
Democrat Mel Watt: http://www.wattforcongress.com/
Republican Ada Fisher: http://www.dradamfisher.org/

13th Congressional District
Democrat Brad Miller: http://www.bradmiller.org/
Republican Vernon Robinson: http://www.vernonrobinson.com/

State legislature

State Senate 26
Democrat Rick Miller: none found.
Republican Phil Berger: http://www.philberger.com/

State House 57
Democrat Pricey Harrison: http://www.priceyharrison.com/
Republican Ron Styers: none found

State House 58
Democrat Alma Adams: http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/members/viewMember.pl?sChamber=House&nUserID=18
Republican Olga Morgan Wright: http://www.voteforolga06.com/

State House 59
Democrat Maggie Jeffus: http://www.maggiejeffus.org/
Republican Jim Rumley: http://www.jimrumley.com/

State House 60
Democrat Earl Jones: none found.
Republican Bill Wright: http://www.votebillwright.com/

State House 65
Democrat Nelson Cole: none found.
Republican Michael Moore: none found.

State House 70
Democrat Hampton Spivey: http://www.spiveyfornchouse.com/
Republican Pat Hurley: Not using one in general election.

The AP reports, "Former lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings on Tuesday concluded three days of testimony at his federal fraud trial after saying that he "was not as precise" as he should have been when he filed ethics forms with the state."

Closing arguments in the Geddings Trial are expected this afternoon.

Yes, I’m serious with that header and I’ll explain in a moment.

I’ve been spending the day reporting a story to coincide with the opening of the N.C. State Fair on Friday.

The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. has issued its annual state business climate rankings. (Click here for an executive summary.(PDF) Click here for the full study.)

North Carolina doesn’t come off all that well, ranking 40th out of 50 states in the foundation’s measure of business friendliness.

Now if you seem to remember other reports about the state’s business-friendliness that suggested we were ahead of the game, not behind the curve as the foundation’s report suggests, you’re not crazy. (More after the jump.)

This story is on the AP business wire this afternoon:

NEW YORK (AP)— More than 650 economists, including five winners of the Nobel Prize for economics, called Wednesday for an increase in the minimum wage, saying the value of the last increase, in 1997, has been "fully eroded."

I find this interesting in light of North Carolina's ongoing debate of raising the minimum wage.

The rest of the AP story after the jump.

This year’s election is Nov. 7. In order to vote, you must be registered to vote. The deadline for registering is tomorrow.

If you need information on how to register, check out your friendly local county board of election, or seek guidance from the state board of elections.

If you’re unsure about your status, the state site has a mechanism by which you can check your voter registration.

And if you just can wait to exercise your franchise, early voting begins Oct. 19.

Still pondering who to vote for? Perhaps some of the information on our Vote 2006 page will help.

Update to this post: Rep. Mel Watt has a campaign website.

From our friends at the Associated Press:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal jury found former state lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings guilty Thursday of five counts of mail fraud.

The jury, which deliberated for more than six hours, also found Geddings not guilty on a single count of wire fraud.

The verdicts came after a three-week trial that included testimony from Gov. Mike Easley, House Speaker Jim Black and other powerful state lawmakers.

Prosecutors said Geddings defrauded the state of honest services by failing to disclose more than $250,000 in payments his public relations firm received from lottery systems maker company Scientific Games Corp.

He faces up to 20 years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines for each count.

Rep. Laura Wiley is organizing a get together to talk about the widening of High Point Road. The who/what/where:

Monday, October 30, 2006
10:00 A.M.
Sedgefield Baptist Church
6007 High Point Road (across from the cemetery)

Now that a federal jury has found Kevin Geddings guilty of five counts of mail fraud, what does it all mean? What will the impact be on elections, life, the universe ... everything be? (Oh, you know those columns and radio talk show segments are coming.)

Would it be a huge disappointment if the answer was "not much?"

The state fair begins today. If you go, check out the local kids showing off their cows, goats and other critters.

So, official word came down today that President Bush is visiting next week, Wednesday to be precise. A blast fax sent out by the White House this afternoon lists the itinerary, which includes a stop at Falkener Elementary and the Victory Junction Gang Camp.

Joe Killian will be wrapping things up with a story in tomorrow’s paper.

It looks like W will be all over the area next week, and you should be prepared for snarled traffic of epic proportions where ever he goes.

I will be at as much of Converge South Saturday as work allows. There are a couple of Congressional candidates that I’m writing about who are scheduled to be in the area at the same time and I don’t want to pass up the opportunity to chat with them out on the stump.

If nothing else, I’m very much looking forward to dinner.

If you happen to see me wandering about aimlessly, please introduce yourself. And if I don’t run into you, have a good time and be nice to my boss.

(Note: audio link below.)

Update:Click here for the story from the print edition.

I was down at the NAACP state convention in Goldsboro Friday. It has been a year since last year’s convention in Greensboro. This was a decidedly less tense and homier affair, held in a church. It sort of had the feel of a big homecoming.

One of the reasons I was down there was to hear Gov. Mike Easley speak to the group. And speak he did.

Among the subjects he touched on was the recently passed law that will raise the state’s minimum wage to $6.15 an hour starting in January.

In his remarks, Easley sounded like he thought more needed to be done.

“It’s a step,” he said of the wage increase. “That’s first step toward a livable wage. Now we’ve got to get a living wage in this state and in this country.”

There are two terms of art working here. The minimum wage refers to the lowest legal wage one can pay a worker in the state. The federal minimum is $5.15 per hour. A “living wage,” according to N.C. Justice Center, would be about $12.32 per hour.

(Not everyone, mind you, thinks increasing the minimum wage is a good idea.)

During his speech, Easley also recounted how when told by a CEO of a big company that the minimum wage increase gave him pause about coming the state.

“I said if that’s causing you trouble, don’t come here,” Easley recalled.

Click her for an MP3 audio of the three minutes Easley spent on the topic of the minimum and living wage in his address.

Easley tempered his remarks some when asked about them outside the NAACP hall. He said the federal government should take the next step toward raising the minimum wage, but that states like N.C. had shown their will to strike out on their own if Congress “continues to lollygag.”

News came today that Rep. Bernard Allen passed away this weekend. Allen represented Wake County.

This from Democratic Party chairman Jerry Meek:

"On behalf of the North Carolina Democratic Party, we are saddened to hear of Representative Bernard Allen's passing. Rep. Allen was a tireless advocate for his constituents, and spent his years in public service improving the lives of the people of Wake County and North Carolina. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Allen family during this difficult time."

While I can’t say I knew him all that well, I did interview Rep. Allen a few times and he seemed like a very nice man. The one thing that stands out in my mind right now is a day I was on deadline and lacking a copy of one of his bills that I needed for my story. He was nice enough to find a photocopier and run me a copy of the bill at the risk of being late to that day’s House session.

So, there was a little blogging/new media/etc… conference today in Greensboro. It seems all had a good time.

During the opening session, Red State (conservative blog) founder Mike Krempasky said that he thought Brad Miller, a Democratic congressman, should be re-elected.

This caused a great laugh in the room and I could see people instantly begin to punch away at their keyboards. Later in the day, my boss asked if it was news – as in news we should write in the newspaper rather than deal with in an online space (like here).

As you may have heard, President Bush is coming to town on Wednesday.

A few weeks ago, my boss, in a fit of optimism, told readers we’d try for a one-on-one interview and asked what questions they would ask.

Well, that plan fizzled in spectacular fashion.

Within 10 minutes of making the request this morning, the very nice communications folks at the White House were on the phone saying that he’d love to chat but is on a really tight schedule that day.

For me, that’s a new land speed record in rejection of an interview request.

Don’t worry though; there’ll be plenty to write about even if we don’t sit down with the Commander-in-Chief. The newsroom will be spending today and tomorrow simultaneously writing about and planning for the visit. So stay tuned.

The AP is reporting as part of a story for tomorrow’s papers that:

Republican House challenger Vernon Robinson raised $694,919 in the three-month quarter ending Sept. 30, about $180,000 more than incumbent Brad Miller. But Miller has far more left in his account _ $770,486 compared to Robinson's $466,842.

If these guys are determined to spend down their accounts, residents in and around the 13th district should expect to see a lot more media in the next three weeks.

From this story (reg. required) in the Charlotte paper:

When allies of House Speaker Jim Black started a fund six months ago to help pay Black's mounting legal bills, the organizer of the fund said it would not take money from political action committees.

That has changed.

Addison Bell, a Matthews businessman and organizer of the legal defense fund, reversed himself this week and confirmed that the legal fund has accepted a $5,000 contribution from a political action committee affiliated with the Teamsters, the biggest union in North Carolina.

"We will accept PAC money," Bell said last week. He said he was incorrectly quoted in stories by three newspapers in March, including the Observer. "I remember saying `lobbyists,' not `PACs.'"

Now, you don't suppose the state GOP would try to make political hay out of this do you? Surely they’d figure some things speak for themselves ... oh, never mind. From this GOP release:

“The Democrats have come up with a new way for special interests to influence legislation,” said NCGOP State Chairman Ferrell Blount. “Only now the political cost is lower...."

No, I’m not going all commercial here. But as I picked through Greensboro 101 for posts not about the RMA report I ran across this one from Guilford County Republican Party Chairman Marcus Kindley:

Well the News and Record has endorsed Alma Adams ... Again. I'm so surprised. The Greensboro News and Record Editorial Staff continues to support the Democrat Party and it’s stranglehold on politics in North Carolina, resulting in the continuing culture of Corruption in Raleigh led by the Democrats and their sense of entitlement.

What I noticed and was happy to see was that Marcus differentiated when he wrote “The Greensboro News and Record Editorial Staff continues to support…” The “editorial staff” are the guys who run the opinion pages like Allen and Doug.

With three weeks to go before the election, Republicans seem to be ramping up their communal campaigning.

The state GOP is putting a new ad on the air (click here) that features several GOP luminaries, including Steve Troxler.

“Can you imagine a North Carolina where the most important things are always done first,” Troxler says during his part of the 30-second spot.

Also today, some leaders of the Republican caucus in the Senate held a news conference to talk about their "North Carolina First" plan. Basically, it's what they say would be their agenda should Republicans take control of the Senate.

Update: Click here for the news release from today's event.

Sen. Phil Berger, a Rockingham Republican and the minority leader in the Senate, took the lead in pitching the plan to reporters. He and others complained that Democratic leaders had not given hearings to bills that would have put a constitutional ban on gay marriage before the voters or a set of tax and spending measures designed to limit the growth of government.

So, if the Republicans take control, will they give every measure by a Democratic Senator a hearing?

Sen. Hugh Webster delivered a one-word answer: “no.”

Berger was more magnanimous, if less definitive. Click here to listen to his answer, which was basically that they’re thinking about a rule that would give every bill at least a committee hearing but they really can’t commit to such at thing right now. Oh, and Sen. Neal Hunt says on the same take that it’s all the media fault that his bills aren’t getting heard.

One of the grand, amusing things about visits by the President, any sitting U.S. President, is it gives folks of either party an opportunity to make some political hay.

In this case, some Republicans (we’re looking at you Howard Coble and Virginia Foxx) are going to get a boost from appearing with the commander-in-chief. Others Republicans will simply bask in the glow of having their party leader around.

And Democrats, well, Democrats get to take their cuts at the big man. Check out Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek in today’s story or Congressman Brad Miller in a news release he sent out today:

Tomorrow, President Bush will resurrect one of his most well-known policy failures, the No Child Left Behind Act, during remarks at Waldo C. Falkener Elementary School in Greensboro.

While the President likes to tout the Act as one his few legislative successes, the reality is that the White House and Republicans in Congress have failed to live up to their part of the bargain.

And then there’s the mean bit:

"I'm pleased President Bush is able to squeeze a visit to a school into his fundraising visit to North Carolina," said Rep. Miller. "But if President Bush really listened to parents and teachers he would know already that without funding to close achievement gaps, No Child Left Behind is just one more mandatory test. His failure to provide the promised funding for education is leaving every child behind."

Click here for the full release.

There’s nothing like a hazardous chemical storage facility going boom to focus the mind. To try and prevent future conflagrations, Gov. Easley has appointed a new hazardous materials task force, which includes Greensboro fire chief Johnny Teeters.

I'll be busy with the President coming to Greensboro today. Y'all play nice and no one else get indicted while we're districtact, ok?

So President Bush winged into town yesterday, had some barbecue, pitched his education package and took home a wheelbarrow full of money for Republican Congressional candidates.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled election season.

We’re through the looking glass people, or something. With two weeks to go before Election Day, the campaign news (and campaign gimmicks that pass a news) is going to come fast and furious.

Some notes and notations from the political scene:

• The proprietor of www.jimblackmustgo.com says it’s about time that he himself got up and went. “I have had my say and my role in this fight is finished. The gravity of events dictate that we need more than citizen advocacy on this issue. What we need is executive action. Governor, North Carolina has always been a better place when you lead. On this issue, the time is now,” wrote Joe Sinsheimer in a letter to the governor.
  
• Speaking of the Speaker, Rep. Earl Jones has stood by Black even while his political opponents blast away.
  
• From the hits just keep on coming department, Speaker Black acknowledges he paid legal bills for now convicted former state Rep. Michael Decker and another Black-related trial is in the works.
  
• Has the governor decided he wants to play too?
  
• Scott Mooneyham says he learned a lot from the Geddings trial, none of it good.
  
• Not really political, but the state fair had a good year this year. Officials say 785,956 folks wandered through the gates to ride rides, eat strange delicacies and ogle farm animals.

From this Washington Post story:

Two weeks before the midterm elections, Republicans are losing the battle for independent voters, who now strongly favor Democrats on Iraq and other major issues facing the country and overwhelmingly prefer to see them take over the House in November, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The new poll underscores how much of a drag the war threatens to be on Republican candidates in competitive races. With debate underway in Washington about possible course changes in Iraq, Americans cite the war as the most important issue in determining their vote next month more often than any other issue, and those who do favor Democrats over Republicans by 76 percent to 21 percent.

That can’t be giving any Republicans at any level a warm and fuzzy feeling. Much has and will be made of a potential “tidal wave” election, where backlash against the party in power swings previously uncontested elections into the opposition (Democrats) column.

Those unaffiliated voters are a big deal here in North Carolina, making up roughly 20 percent of the electorate, give or take. If they come out and break hard against Republicans, more than just Congressional candidates need to pay attention.

No, voters aren’t going to consciously punish state legislative or local Republicans for the sins of the D.C. GOP crew. But if they’re angry, and that anger is what is motivating them to get off the couch and head to the polls, my instincts tell me they’re not going to be ticket splitting lower down on the ballot.

Yes, some will know about the problems of Democratic state House Speaker Jim Black and break Republican based on an anti-scandal bias, but I would bet newly activated voters (those just tuning into the election) won’t know as much and won’t be as inclined to make that same split.

Have I mentioned lately that the paper is aggregating our election coverage all in one place?

You can find audio and other fun stuff on the four Guilford County House races on this here blog: House 57 | House 58 | House 59 |House 60 .

Money matters in elections, especially federal-level elections. Even if all other things are breaking your way, you’ve got to have some money to get your message out and do some basic campaign work like organizing volunteers, putting out yard signs, etc...

The ability to raise money (or lack thereof) is also a pretty good indicator in those races of how seriously people are taking your races. If you look at the latest federal campaign finance reports here’s what they tell you about the three local Congressional races:

NC 6th District
Republican incumbent Howard Coble has very little to worry about by this metric. Coble has $749,023 cash on hand after dolling out $459,531 over the last quarter.

Democrat Rory Blake had $814 on hand as of Sept. 30 after spending $14,004. In a district that includes six counties where voter registration runs heavily against you, that’s simply not enough to cut the mustard.

Without a heavy-duty cash infusion of a political tsunami the likes of which the state has never seen, Blake isn’t going to make Coble sweat this one.

Click here for Coble’s report.
Click here for Blake’s report.

NC 12th District
Republican challenger Ada Fisher is make a good show in her effort to unseat Democratic incumbent Mel Watt. Fisher raised $335,901 during the last reporting period to Watt’s $389,418. Watt has a sizeable cash-on-hand advantage because he began the campaign cycle with more in his coffers.

Fisher’s problem isn’t money, but the fact the national election trend is breaking against Republican candidates of all stripes and the district is heavily Democratic. All other factors being equal, she would have been more competitive.

Click here for Watt’s report.
Click here for Fisher’s report.

NC 13th District

In a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease, Republican challenger Vernon Robinson pulled down $1.49 million in his race against Democratic incumbent Brad Miller, who was at $1.48 million as of Sept. 30.

Robinson has spent down more of his cash, but expect both candidates to have plenty of money to make some noise during the last two weeks of the election.

Click here for Miller’s report.
Click here for Robinson’s report.

The N.C. Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform (they’ve changed their name, if not their web site) has a new mission: make the process of redrawing the state’s legislative boundaries a little more sane. These are the same group of folks (from the left and right) who pushed for and got some of the lobbying and ethics reforms during the last General Assembly session.

Legislative lines are redrawn every 10 years after the census is taken. The constitutional idea is that you redraw the lines so that everyone has roughly the same representation and no one district becomes way more populous than another.

The problem, of course, is that we leave the redrawing in the hands of the politicians who stand to gain or loose from the lines being redrawn. So the final product is wacky looking lines like the skinny N.C. 12th Congressional District that meanders from Charlotte to Greensboro or the equally weird (although not quite as obvious) 13th District which wanders from Raleigh to Greensboro and just happened to have been drawn by the guy who now occupies it.

In their effort to regain control of the state House and swim against the national tide of falling poll numbers for the GOP, the last thing state House Republicans need to be doing is extending the internecine tiff between former Rep. Art Pope and soon-to-be-former Rep. Richard Morgan.

So, of course, the Republicans are extending the internecine tiff between form Rep. Art Pope and soon-to-be-former Rep. Richard Morgan.

Former Rep. Dan Blue, who was state House Speaker before the 1994 Republican take over, has been selected to replace Rep. Bernard Allen, a Wake County Democrat who died earlier this month. Allen had no opposition in this year's election, so Blue will serve through 2008.

Blue got some instant buzz as a potential candidate for the Speaker’s job again, entering the mix along with other folks like Hugh Holliman from Davidson County and Joe Hackney of Orange County.

All of which is swell, except for the fact there’s an election in less than two weeks and the Democrats have to keep their majority in the House for any of that buzz to be worth anything.

That’s not out of the question by any stretch. If you had asked me over the summer what the House will look like next January, I would have said there was a better than 50-50 chance the GOP would be in control. But national politics has had a deleterious effect on that possibility.

As the Democrats get excited about their chances of winning more Congressional seats, they mobilize more voters. More Democrats showing up to the polls mean fewer chances for Republicans to take advantage of quirky turnout and pull some upsets.

But don’t expect the GOP to give up. From the leadership to the rank and file, there is a strong belief that this is the year of all years to try to pull an upset and they’re going to put some muscle into it. Swimming against the national tide makes that harder, but not impossible.

So stay tuned for Nov. 7.

Another day, another poll, another write-up saying Congressional Republicans should be worried.

Still, Karl Rove says everything will be okay.

Somebody’s got to be wrong here. Take your pick.

No, Brad Miller and Vernon Robinson aren’t going to be singing karaoke together anytime soon.

But it’s not a bad thing that there are occasionally some shared viewpoints. In fact, I find it a bit comforting.

Well, enough of that. We now return you to your regularly scheduled mud slinging campaign.

Election Day is a week from tomorrow and if you’re a voter in the North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District and haven’t made up your mind about who you’re voting for, then you’re just not paying attention. (Need to catch up on this campaign? Click here.)

Democrat Brad Miller and Republican Vernon Robinson have done their best imitation of oil and water this campaign. Yes, I wrote over the weekend that the two occasionally line up on some issues. However, at the end of the day Miller is a social liberal who is more in sync with voters in the Greensboro and Raleigh polls of the district while Robinson is a social conservative who plays best in the rural counties in the district’s center. They are nowhere close to one another on hot-button topics like abortion or on broader policy issues such as the war in Iraq.

A few notes on the campaign going into the last week:

The latest Elon Poll says Democrat Heath Schuler has a better than 50-50 shot of knocking off incumbent Republican Charles Taylor in North Carolina’s 11th District.

Campaign finance info will be coming in by way of drips and drabs this week. Most candidates won’t even file (or pop into the mail) a report until today.

One report that is in comes from the N.C. Realtors PAC. These folks raise and give lots of money.

It caught my attention that they have given Rep. Maggie Jeffus, a Democrat and former school teacher $2,250 this cycle. Meanwhile, Jeffus’ Republican opponent, Rep. Jim Rumley, doesn’t seem to have gotten any money from Real Pac, and he’s a “Real Estate & Property Management Owner/Broker” according to his web site.

Jeffus’ 3Q campaign report isn’t filed yet, but Rumley’s shows no contributions from political action committees of any kind.

In the “also of note” category, the Jefferson Pilot State Good Government Committee seems to still be collecting cash from the folks who work for what is now Lincoln Financial. Click here for an index of their reports. If you check out the 3Q report, you’ll see no spending, other than on bank fees. It looks like the committee spread the wealth in the second quarter.