Comment Archives: Stories: Elections: The Election Page
Re: “Why Wake County Judge Abe Jones lost”
@Diana: I don't have personal knowledge of Judge Jones, but I did meet him at the polls, and the Indy endorsed him, so he surely had my support. On the other hand, Judge Stephens ruled against me in a very painful appeal that severed my family in two, from which we have no evidence of a recovery, now 7 years later. It was a bad decision, and he was predisposed against me before he heard the facts in a guardianship case.
Re: “Why Wake County Judge Abe Jones lost”
WOW, I work in and around the courtrooms and know both of these guys and seen them work. Judge Jones makes sure everything is correct before moving onto another case. I've seen it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears.
Judge Stephens, well my mom and grandmother always taught me that if you can't say something good then don't say nothing at all so my lips are tight.
Re: “Who will fill Chris Malone's vacancy on the Wake County school board?”
Want to improve public education? Let people choose it -- and any other issue they care about -- invite experts or just regular citizens to submit VIABLE solutions in an easy-to-use format, and let people vote for the strategies they like most. www.at10us.com
Re: “Why Wake County Judge Abe Jones lost”
I live in garner & i could not find judge jones name anywhere on the ballot when i was voting same as my mom when i ask a pole official about why his name isn't on the ballot she told me she don't know it just not up there. We wrote his name in but i feel that should be looked into that don't seem right & i know judge jones personally that's not him that his style. I hope judge jones fight this.
Re: “Despite election of all-female delegations in Orange and Chatham, women still a minority in N.C. legislature”
Seems like you forgot to mention how these women won or retained their seats--the old-fashioned way-by spending gobs more money than their GOP challengers.
On average each of these women spent $77K on their campaigns, while the opponents spent $18K, so they spent 4 times as much as their opponents.
I don't doubt that if their challengers had won, campaign finance would be the lead of this article.
Re: “Why Wake County Judge Abe Jones lost”
Maybe Judge Stephens meant ""It's really CRAP" because it certainly is. This is not the Judge Jones we know.Graduating in the top of his class at Enloe then Harvard College, then Harvard Law School, appointed to the U.S. Attorney's Office and then the Superior Court by Governor Hunt, 17 years of service on the bench...that doesn't happen without a very strong work ethic.Judge Jones is known for always asking "do you have anything else for me?" before leaving the bench each day.He's taken cases for other judges. Let's face it - this was a personal vendetta against Judge Jones. Judge Stephens got what he wanted, but a bully just can't resist stomping his victim one more time...pathetic! Judge Jones is a survivor. He ran a positive campaign and those who know him wish him only the best. As for Judge Stephens...
counting on Karma
Re: “What went wrong for North Carolina's Democrats?”
Everyone who voted to keep the Chair was a member of the SEC. They are all active in their county, district and state to get EVERY Democrat elected - the entire slate. Many can and do work on individual campaigns, but we also chose to focus on the bigger picture.
Let me put it to you another way. In a county like Wake with 200 precincts, do you know how many people each campaign would need to cover every precinct with signs the night before the election? Does it make sense for each and every campaign to have so many people doing the exact same job as those in other campaigns? Or does it make more sense for some of those functions to be done in a more cost-effective (in terms of money and manpower) by a county Party that works for ALL Dems?
That's what looking at the big picture will do. And that's how people get to go from merely being a volunteer in an individual campaign to working on coordinated campaigns to being a member of the State Executive Committee who are in charge of the bigger picture.
And now to the regrettable handling of the harassment lawsuit. First off, the matter was handled internally - which is a requirement under state and federal laws. David Parker broke no state or federal law in how he handled that. So why were so many COS candidates as well as Dalton asking for him to be more transparent, and then when he was - they asked for his resignation? Could it be that they were being manipulated, first by the Republicans and then by their own paid political consultants - both of whom wanted to scramble the NCDP leadership at this crucial time?
And what of the alleged victim in this whole matter - the ex NCDP employee who was allegedly harassed by his employer? Well, the ED who resigned was able to collect full unemployment because the ESC determined that he did not in fact resign - he was given no choice but to resign, so in effect he was fired. But as it turns out - he was not fired for any good cause. Meaning ESC did an investigation of the claim, and they determined that Jay didn't do anything worthy of being fired for. And as Parker revealed during the press conference, Jay Parmalee didn't engage in any illegal conduct. Now as to why Adraidn might have felt like Jay was sexually harassing him, I have no idea. You'll have to ask him when the lawsuit comes to trial.
Was he fired for complaining about Jay sexually harassing him? I don't know exactly why he was fired, but from what I saw, he was an incompetent employee. He was the guy who flashed the "Aunt Jemima and Oprah" images up on the big screen at the April 2011 SEC meeting in Raleigh. And when he was assigned to me to help take tickets for the dinner that night, he had the attention span of a gnat - he didn't stay at the table taking tickets. Nor for that matter did the other NCDP staffer. Who knows why they repeatedly left their posts to go off and do stuff, only to come back a few minutes later.
He was also dismissed from NCSU student government for being involved in a ticket scalping incident, mainly because he knew what was going on, and he refused to accept his higher level of responsibility as a member of student government. Why anyone hired him to work for the NCDP during the tenure of David Young is beyond me. Diversity is one thing - but we need to hire competent people of good character to work for our Party. Hire good competent people first - no matter their gender, race, or sexual preferences. If you have two good candidates, then use diversity. But diversity is no excuse for hiring screw-ups.
Meek was elected by the SEC members - the same ones you bad-mouth for rejecting Parker's resignation.
I'd say that some of the candidates or electeds hurt the Party more than the decisions made by these so-called myopic and uninformed EDs. Why for example, did the NCDP have to hire lawyers to defend the Party from the actions of Easley campaign staffers? Why did the NCDP have to pay for ticket upgrades for Gov Perdue and tickets for her millionaire husband? For many years before, the NCDP was thought to be the plaything of the electeds - especially the higher-up electeds. Meek tried to change that, but even he couldn't totally change the Party in one fell swoop. We still had some hold-over policies that SEC members especially were trying to change.
And in terms of pyopic and uninformed decisions of EDs - which EDs are you talking about? OK - after Meek left, the Governor wanted us to elect a Chair who had only lived in the western part of the state as a 4-term county commissioner. His experience winning those 4 elections was supposed to be important and valuable for us in the future. His first decision was to hire someone from the Heath Shuler campaign who also happened to be dating Jerry Meek's ED. They then hired 3 key people by June 2009: a political director; a statewide Field Director who was from DC (his daddy was a friend of Obama's) who only worked in NC during the 2008 campaign with OFA; and a communications director who did little communicating to the public (but I did see her on her cell phone out in front of Goodwin House quite often). They then hired 5 Regional Field Directors by August (most of whom had NO POLITICAL experience other than working for OFA in the 2008 election campaign) - one of whom reportedly was a Republican before the 2008 election. How well did that work out for the Party?
Well - two of the three June hires were fired before the 2009 elections took place. The remaining June hire did very little communicating that anyone could see - there were no press releases or press conferences coming from Goodwin House to counter the daily press conferences that NC GOP Chair Tom Fetzer was making. Three of the 5 RFDs were "loaned" to the Anthony Foxx campaign, instead of working around the state doing more good on school board and municipal races. Nearly 3/4s of a million dollars were funneled into the Foxx race - which he won by around 3K votes. It was apparently that important for Foxx to win this race even though Dems already controlled the Charlotte City Council. After that election, we only had 4 RFDs. And instead of building the Party, they worked to con volunteers into phone banking only - no canvassing. That's important because studies have shown that door to door canvassing is more effective in getting out the vote than phone banking. One big advantage that phone banking has is that it allows the folks managing the phone banking to better control the volunteers - and that's what OFA was about. Not building a community or a party - but about controlling the message. Which was very Obama-centric by this time right down to the new Democratic Party logo - which appeared to be a small "D" surrounded by a BIG "O" (right from the President's own logo. As if the entire Democratic Party was smaller and less important than either the President or his campaign. That insulted a lot of Dems who realize that there are many more races than the every 4-year Presidential race that needed to be won.
So yes - I agree that all those Obamacentric decisions were myopic. They hurt many more candidates than they helped in 2009 and especially in 2010. So what's your point again - that OFA methods WORK? Other than for the 2008 election (and the 2012 election in every swing state OTHER THAN NC), they failed to work to elect Democrats. Otherwise, how do you explain the huge ass-kicking that was 2010?
While there are more voters in NC in 2012 than in 2008, and more voters voted, turnout as a % of registered voters was DOWN in 2012 compared to 2008 when the NCDP and county Parties were stronger. SO the decision to weaken the Party was not a good one - and SEC members know that.
First off, most SEC members run for that office in their own county convention, elected by delegates from the precincts. Those are the people who are in the trenches electing Democrats at the local level. We vote on resolutions and changes to the NCDP Plan of Organization. Many SEC members are also county Chairs and Vice-Chairs, US Congressional District Chairs, Presidents of Democratic Party auxiliaries, and some elected public officials. By the way - none of the Council of State members who were pushing Parker to resign actually cast a vote in that May 12 SEC meeting to reject or accept Parker's resignation. There's a saying you might have heard of (or maybe you have not been around long enough to know it), but it goes like this: "if you don't vote, don't bitch!"
Funny thing about that May rejection of David Parker's resignation. David's resignation was defeated by a larger majority than he got when he was elected NCDP Chair in January 2011. Do you not respect the will of the majority? That's what elections are all about. Funny that you claim to be working in campaigns but you don't respect the results of the votes that campaigns make possible.
The NCDP is a political party. OFA was a $750 million top-down business in 2008, and it was a $1 billion business in 2012 with only one goal - to sell their product in 2008 and then again in 2012. They cared about nothing else. Most didn't care about the downsides of what they did and how OFA methods affected other candidates in those years or the years in between. They also didn't care about the Democratic Party. Plouffe pretty much said so in his book.
But do they think that working for strong myopic leaders (those who only have one product to sell and don't care about other races or the Party Platform that is created by a more democratic process than whatever process a campaign or an elected official uses to create their agenda - like the Obama agenda which seemed to change quite often?
Which people know the donors? Where were the donors this year - they were donating to the GOP, because the GOP got the majority in 2010 because too many people allowed OFA the organization and former OFA staffers to destroy the Democratic Party.
And in all your worldly experience, do you really think Bev Perdue making people think that she was going to run for Gov again in 2012, and then announcing at the last minute that she was not going to run was a smart idea? Especially when McCrory started running for 2012 the day after the 2008 election? I can tell you that after 2010, many people who would normally run for office had to think twice. Once because they knew that OFA would suck all the oxygen out of the room in 2012 - much like they did in 2008. And that the NCDP and many county Party organizations had been severely weakened by what OFA did in 2008 and so in 2012 the Party would not be able to provide anywhere near the help for all candidates that we did in 2008.
And of course there was Charlotte. While many people lost their perspective (and minds) trying to get to the big dog and pony show that was the 2012 DNC Convention, many people realized what a total waste of time that would be in terms of getting out the vote and winning local elections. That's why many key elected officials initially talked about staying home and working to get out the vote. If the Charlotte convention was such a good thing for NC - why do you think that Obama lost NC in 2012 by nearly 100K votes when he barely won it in 200*?
I don't know how that would happen - unless OFA was telling volunteers directly in 2008 that the NCDP and county party organizations were a waste of time. We had one OFA worker call up our former county party Chair Doris Weaver and tell her that directly in 2008. This guy got a paid NCDP staff job in 2009, but got loaned to Charlotte in 2009 even though his resume says he didn't start working for the NCDP until 2010. He worked for the Wake Dems on the 2011 school board election even though he somehow got deregistered to vote in North Carolina for a couple of months.
And how will the NCDP get it's act together if OFA is trying to destroy the NCDP? We had OFA staffers following behind NCDP staffers at phone banks, actively poaching those NCDP volunteers. When caught in the act, they claimed that we are all in this together. If so - why doesn't OFA share their volunteers? And why does OFA poison the NCDP well?
NCDP will get it's act together and build itself up to be the strong Party organization it once was when we learn that no candidate or campaign is bigger than or is the boss of the Party. And we can start by getting OFA volunteer data from OFA, then showing them the door. And never making the same mistake again to let any candidate or campaign make the Party subordinate to the candidate or campaign.
Re: “In Wake County, European election observers critique the process”
What an outrage! NC officials should have arrested all of them and then ejected them from the state. Best if they could have been deported back to Europe or at least dropped off in the UN lobby in NYC and told to go home.
Re: “What went wrong for North Carolina's Democrats?”
Why Obama Lost North Carolina
The Democratic Convention for the presidential elections was held in North Carolina, a state that has a large African American population. During the convention, the LGBT agenda was flaunted in a rather arrogant way. This offended many black voters and they reflected that by not voting for Barack Obama. Four years earlier, Obama won North Carolina. This year, he won all of the battleground states except North Carolina.
Re: “What went wrong for North Carolina's Democrats?”
Unlike the people who voted to keep the Chairman despite his regrettable handling of the harassment lawsuit, I worked in democratic campaigns, actively trying to get good Democrats elected. Since Meek left, the party has been dysfunctional. Executive Directors have made decisions so myopic or downright uninformed that they h have on multiple occasions actually hurt the candidates they were supposed to support in both the short and long term. Although the biggest problem lies with the State Executive Committee, who's membership is dominated by folks completely removed from electoral reality.
Here's the important part: the smart, hard-working, mostly younger, campaign workers see this. They see how much better the leadership within NC OFA is. They want to work for strong leadership. These people know the donors, and consciously or not, this message that the NCDP is dysfunctional gets across to them. The key workers and donors won't work for or donate to the NCDP until it gets it's act together.
Re: “What went wrong for North Carolina's Democrats?”
Me thinks the rise of the super PACs played a huge roll in NC politics, and I would argue that the influence of OFA's behavior pales by comparison.
Re: “What went wrong for North Carolina's Democrats?”
Obama scaring everyone witless in 2009-2010, leading to a Tea Party driven 2010 election, followed by a very effective Republican redistricting, and then topped off by a failed Democrat governor (Dumplin') pretty much sealed the deal for NC Democrats in 2012. A failed party eventually falls.
Re: “What went wrong for North Carolina's Democrats?”
There's nothing in the redistricting that Democrats wouldn't have done with new GIS data. I don't like it any more than any other Democrat, but there's no moral high ground available here.
We've got about two years in which to get both parties to agree to redistricting reform before one of them will start to believe they'll hold the GA in 2020 when this comes round again. Right now, neither party can be too sure of what's going to happen then, so there's at keast a chance of getting a nonpartisan commission to draw the maps.
Re: “What went wrong for North Carolina's Democrats?”
To use a different sports metaphor, "One hundred percent of shots not taken don't go in."
There were 17 Republican incumbents that elected not to run, which may or may not have been viable as pick ups.
But a further 26 Republican seats weren't even CONTESTED -- including Thom Tillis'. Is the NCDP really saying that in all of Mecklenburg County they couldn't find one competent Democrat to challenge the ALEC poster boy? Or could they simply not FUND such a Democrat?
Re: “What went wrong for North Carolina's Democrats?”
Funny that no one mentioned the fundamental changes to the Democratic Party that were ushered in by former DNC Chair Howard Dean and NCDP Chair Jerry Meek that resulted in phenomenal growth of the Democratic Party from the grassroots up. Those changes were single-handedly undone by the Obama campaign beginning in June 2008, largely because a Party run by the grassroots was seen as a threat to the legislative agenda that Obama would be pushing. First and foremost on the Party agenda would be significant healthcare reform: Single-payer universal health care and not the health insurance mandates that the President rejected in secret before he was elected.
So instead of continuing to do what led to Democratic successes in 2006 and 2008, Democrats around the country were lulled by our elected Party leaders into allowing Obama campaign to control the Democratic Party. From picking Tim Kaine to allowing the Obama Campaign organization to morph into Organizing For America and become part of the Democratic National Committee, OFA was able to demobilize the Democratic army beginning in 2008. Instead of following the Democratic Party platform crafted by members and delegates beginning in the precinct, we were forced into supporting whatever the President's "agenda du jour" was - and it changed a lot. We were told that we had to give the President wins on his agenda - instead of realizing that the President ran as the nominee of the Democratic Party, with a mandate from us to work to turn our Party platform into public policy. Which is more "democratic" - a national agenda that began to be crafted in each precinct that works its way up through the county, congressional district, state and then national level - or an agenda crafted by political staffers for the President? It's especially galling to realize that under DNC by-laws the President doesn't even have a vote for DNC officers or on the platform!
And while the OFA campaign methods crafted by Axelrod, Plouffe and Messina were successful in getting Obama elected, they were not much good for anyone else. Obama had no coat-tails in the 2008 election. Many statewide candidates that he did not pull up along with him got more votes than he did: Beverly Perdue, Elaine Marshall, and Roy Cooper. And the OFA methods didn't work in elections held immediately after November 2008: 2008 GA Senate runoff, 2009 VA and NJ gubernatorial races, and the MASS Senate special election to fill Teddy Kennedy's seat. All were losses for Democrats, and if OFA was involved in them - they were too little too late! OFA entered late in the WI recall elections, until they were pulled back by the national leaders.
Certainly there were other problems: Beverly Perdue waiting until the last freaking minute to decide she wasn't going to run for Governor in 2012. She cursed ANY Democrat who would win the nomination because McCrory began running for Governor in 2012 as soon as he lost in 2008. I suggest that Dalton and anyone else interested in running for governor begin to do what McCrory did - start running now. Just because someone loses one year does not hex them for future runs. Frankly I'd like to see someone like Roy Cooper or Janet Cowell run for Governor. But they would need to make amends for interfering with the NCDP in the Spring of 2012.
Another problem was the DNC Convention located in Charlotte. Since we were the host state, many Democrats lost their perspective and lost their freaking minds trying to do whatever it took to go to Charlotte even if it was just to hold the door for some lower-level elected Democratic dignitary. They didn't organize precincts, they didn't build their volunteer list of precinct volunteers, etc. For example, Wake County had 145 organized precincts in 2008 - at one point in 2012 we had under 100. Of the 24 precincts I was personally responsible for in 2008, I had 21 organized. In early 2012, another person had let that fall to 2012. (on a side note - perhaps the reason why we needed to have a school board runoff for Kevin Hill in November 2011 was because 20 of the 26 precincts in his district were unorganized - he could have avoided the runoff had he only won 51 more votes in those 26 precincts - right around 2 votes per precinct).
If you remember the line from Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan - "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one!" It seems as though many Democrats need to take that to heart - especially here in NC. President Obama may have won this state in 2008, but those OFA methods resulted in a nearly 100K loss for Obama in 2012 in NC, but many other North Carolina Democrats lost because we did not have the critical mass needed to advance the entire Democratic slate. We also had OFA staffers poaching Democratic Party volunteers during the campaign, while OFA has yet to share their list of volunteers with the Democratic Party to help us build the Party for the future. This appears to be a re-play of 2008. Only time will tell.
One thing is for sure. Former Presidential candidate and DNC Chair Howard Dean's mantra was: "you have to take back your Party before you can take back your country!" The growth of the Democratic Party from the grassroots made up largely of Deaniacs was proof that you can win elections (2006 and 2008) from the grassroots up. The failures from after November 2008 - including the 2010 and 2012 General elections - are proof that we should tear up the OFA playbook and kick OFA to the curb now that President Obama can't run for office.
Re: “What went wrong for North Carolina's Democrats?”
Hello, Mike. It may be that "podium" has come to be associated with athletes accepting medals, but there is nothing in the accepted definition to indicate a connection to athletics; in fact, dictionaries specify orchestra leaders and public speakers as those who hold court from these platforms. According to Merriam-Webster and American Heritage, the term is synonymous with "lectern."
Re: “What went wrong for North Carolina's Democrats?”
One small beef with this article: it is a "lectern", not a "podium". A podium is what an athlete stands on after winning a medal. A lectern is what a speaker stands behind.
Re: “Pat McCrory, man of mystery”
Looks like the worst case scenario has occurred. There will be buyer's remorse. As I see it and as Pat Mccrory probably sees it, NC is not Alabama nor Mississippi red. Where Republican or Democratic cronyism will be tolerated for long. NC is a split between Republican and Democratic ideologies. PBO was re-elected and the Republican/Tea Party put on notice by the nation that their brand of extremism is unacceptable to a majority of Americans. Pat should be mindful of this, Republican majority or not - the entire GOP has been put on notice.
Shadow money coming in from outside sources like the Koch Brothers (oil and gas industries and Art Pope to name just 2) to push agendas not in line with the citizens of NC nor have the citizens best interests at heart, only with the corporations and the richest 1%.
In the meantime, North Carolinian's should look for up and coming candidates who are truly moderate Republicans, Democrats or Independents, will look out for the needs of ALL the people of NC and their families and protect what makes NC a great place to live - for all!
Re: “What went wrong for North Carolina's Democrats?”
When the Democrats controlled the General Assembly, whatever method they could use (such as fundraising and re-districting) to stay in power was acceptable. When the Republicans get control, any method they use to stay in power is unacceptable. Makes sense to me.
Perhaps both parties should behave and stop acting badly.
Re: “Why Wake County Judge Abe Jones lost”
"As senior resident judge, Stephens explains, he's "held responsible" for the administration of justice by the superior court. And it's in the administration where he found Jones' expertise lacking."
Judge Donald Stephens has avoided administering justice for years:
1. No court form exists to allow a defendant to plead not guilty in the state district courts.
2. No court form exists to allow a defendant to demand or waive probable cause hearing in district court per NCGS 15A-606. (That’s why cases get continued for years).
3. The ACIS court computer system records all court dates as jury trials. (So a court clerk doesn’t know if a defendant had a probable cause hearing before being forced into a jury trial).
4. The ACIS court computer system doesn’t contain a field to allow a clerk to input a probable cause hearing.