WataugaWatch

Where was the celebrated Republican/conservative resurgence in North Carolina yesterday? Nowhere much.

Charlotte
...elected its first Democratic mayor in 22 years, Anthony Foxx (no relation), pictured left, and increased the Democratic majority on the city council to eight out of 11 seats.

Asheville
Progressives swept the election. Mayor Terry Bellamy was reelected for a second term, and liberal Democrats Esther Manheimer, Gordon Smith, and Cecil Bothwell won council seats, beating two-term incumbent Republican Carl Mumpower, who ran such a weird campaign against Heath Shuler in the NC-11 last year. Both Smith and Bothwell are well known local bloggers.

Chapel Hill
The N&O summarized this race succinctly: "The liberal establishment held off a band of businessmen trying to change the town's course." So Chapel Hill has a new mayor, Mark Kleinschmidt, and the developers took only one of four available seats on the town council. Shades of Boone's Templetons: The pro-business candidates "were being influenced heavily by a specific group of developers, and I think in the end that backfired on them," said the top vote-getter, Penny Rich (love that name!).

Winston-Salem
Big reelection win for Dan Besse after "a sometimes-heated campaign" against Republican challenger Ted Shipley. Wish I'd been following this one! Dan is a personal hero of ours. Looks like a Democratic sweep otherwise in Tobacco City.

Durham
Democratic incumbents trounced their challengers, though the top vote-getter among the losers, a Libertarian, crowed that his 27% of the vote was a personal best for him and a sign of great things coming in the future.

Greensboro
The major bright spot statewide for the GOP. The mayor and city council turned over to Republican control. Mark Binker discusses it here.

Labels: Anthony Foxx, Asheville, Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Dan Besse, Durham, Greensboro, North Carolina Republican Party, Winston-Salem

Late yesterday afternoon Dan Besse posted this wholly reasonable suggestion on BlueNC:

Every elected representative who rails against the stimulus as fundamentally a bad idea should be expected to file an opt-out bill on behalf of his or her district. Under the opt-out, no infrastructure funds, no education funds, no broadband money, etc., from the stimulus-funded programs would be used in his/her district.

With Rep. Virginia Foxx taking every opportunity to fog-horn her utter disgust with President Obama and his economic stimulus, it's time for her to have the courage of her convictions and actually do what Dan suggests ... DEMAND that the 5th Dist. is waaay too American, too patriotic, too Godly to accept any of the president's ill-gotten funds.

To sit silently by ... why, Foxx might as well have voted for the stimulus.

All she has to do is follow the lead of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who yesterday said he intends to sniff every single dollar of the $4 billion that his state was due to receive, to make sure the wrong people hadn't handled it. That is the right thing to do, if you're a conservative extremist who believes in casting out demons and federal dollars with equal fervor.

We expect Gov. Mark Sanford of South Em-Effing Carolina to do likewise, to gather the hem of his cloak up tightly 'gainst his thighs, to wave off the Obama stimulus, and to pray to God to save his state from all such intrusions of Northern Aggression.

Madam Foxx should be so brave, or at least as intellectually consistent as her incessant carping.

Labels: Bobby Jindal, Dan Besse, Mark Sanford, Obama economic stimulus, Virginia Foxx

What would we do for comedy without an e-mail from Madam Foxx?

This a.m. our comedienne in Mugstomp-on-the-Potomac scolds us that we’ve GOT to reduce our dependence on oil, and she has the sure-fire solution: GET MORE DEPENDENT ON OIL, by letting those humanitarians in Big Oil drill off all our coasts (and behind the sofa, if need be), and soon alternative energies will magically appear, but not until Big Oil sells our natural resources back to us at inflated prices and leverages all the patents to alternative energy solutions so they can sell that to us too.

It’s not enough, those undrilled 68 million acres of federal land that Big Oil already holds drilling rights to. Corporate America has a bigger appetite. And our best interests in the deepest recesses of their microscopic hearts.

Thank gawd Madam Foxx has volunteered to fight for the beast.

FOOTNOTE
Dan Besse has written an excellent letter to the editor (as found on BlueNC):

To the editor:

Pat McCrory has just called millions of North Carolinians "hypocrites."

According to the Raleigh News & Observer (6/30/08), McCrory said that anyone who drives daily and opposes drilling [off North Carolina's coast] is "hypocritical."

In McCrory's view, it doesn't matter whether you drive an efficient car or even a hybrid vehicle. He doesn't care whether you cut back on driving by taking the bus or a bike or a carpool where possible. To him, it makes no difference whether you already use ethanol or biodiesel in your vehicle, or actively support development of biofuels so that you can. It doesn't matter that you don't control where the oil companies drill for oil or from whom they buy it.

If you aren't willing to jeopardize our coast and our fisheries and tourism industries in order to increase Big Oil's profits, then McCrory says you're a hypocrite.

Pat McCrory owes an immediate apology to the people of North Carolina.

Labels: Dan Besse, oil industry, Pat McCrory, Virginia Foxx

Very interesting thread called "Dear Senator Hagan" over at BlueNC, and if you want to educate yourself a little about the NC Senate's proposed budget, its implications and the roles of Kay Hagan and Walter Dalton in the making of it, and how it's a document that might seem to give political cover to the reelection of Sen. Liddy Dole, against whom Kay Hagan is supposed to be running, and the morality of children's health insurance specifically, on which topic do NOT miss Dan Besse's several comments in the thread ... then you should read it fer shur.

Labels: BlueNC, Dan Besse, Elizabeth Dole, Kay Hagan, North Carolina Senate, Walter Dalton

On the Democratic side, Obama won his match-up with Clinton in early voting, where some 3,185 votes were cast (including mail-in absentees), 1,974 of those for Obama to 1,174 for Clinton. That winning margin for Obama could not be overcome in precinct voting today, even though 11 of 20 precincts today went for Clinton.

Generally speaking, Clinton was strongest in the more rural parts of the county but not everywhere. For example, Elk and North Fork tipped to Obama. Watauga precinct (Foscoe and Valle Crucis) went for Obama. The three Boone precincts and New River 1 went for Obama. Blowing Rock and Blue Ridge turned in dead-even ties between Clinton and Obama.

Fifth Dist. congressional candidate Roy Carter carried Watauga by some 1,300 votes but appears to be slightly behind Diane Hamby district-wide (as of this writing).

U.S. senatorial candidate Jim Neal had an impressive showing in Watauga (2,291 votes), though he lost to Kay Hagan by a thousand votes in the county and to Hagan state-wide by a huge margin. Watauga was probably one of his best counties, perhaps because he made two visits here prior to the voting.

Likewise, Dan Besse came in second to Walter Dalton in Watauga. Good showing for Besse here, while he was losing the rest of the state.

On the Republican side, the most astounding local numbers were local dentist Jerry Butler's loss of his own county to Alexander Co. resident Dwight Shook in the State Senate Dist. 45 primary. Shades of Virginia Foxx! Butler can't carry his own county but wins the district and will be facing incumbent Senator Steve Goss this fall.

Oh, and Ron Paul didn't win the Republican presidential primary, though with 367 Watauga votes, he did out-poll "No Preference."

A total of 2,660 Republican ballots were cast, to 7,081 Democratic ballots. That may turn out to be the most significant bellwether of the night.

Labels: Barack Obama, Dan Besse, Dwight Shook, Hillary Clinton, Jerry Butler, Jim Neal, Ron Paul, Roy Carter, Virginia Foxx, Walter Dalton, Watauga County primary voting