McCrory as the change candidate?

02 Nov 2008, Posted by Will Robinson in News, election 2008, 0 Comments

Pat McCrory - Maya Robinson/The Chronicle

As Election Day nears, North Carolina is expected to include some of the closest races in the country. Polls show the U.S. Senate, presidential and gubernatorial races are all deadlocked. And, as Chuck Todd of MSNBC.com notes, “the Republicans feel best about their chances in the governor’s race (a campaign they usually lose) than the senate or presidential.” This may be because Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, the Republican candidate, has been able to present himself as the candidate of “change.” Democrats have dominated the North Carolina state government for the past eight years, and McCrory finds himself in the unique position of a Republican candidate who represents a change.

Mac McCorkle, a veteran political consultant for McCrory’s opponent Democratic Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue, visited my public policy class Monday. He explained that the Perdue campaign was frustrated by the way the media had “framed” the race by portraying McCrory as the candidate for change. McCorkle pointed out that many of the state’s major newspapers—including the (Raleigh) News & Observer and the Durham Herald-Sun—have endorsed McCrory. He noted, however, that if Perdue were elected she would represent a major political change as the first woman governor of North Carolina.

New developments in the Dole-Hagan war over the ‘Godless’ advertisement

01 Nov 2008, Posted by Alex Klein in News, election 2008, 0 Comments

One of the seemingly infinite number of political blogs out there, The New York Times’s The Caucus recently featured a North Carolinian’s perspective on the state’s senatorial race between incumbent Republican candidate (and Duke graduate) Elizabeth Dole and Democrat and current state Sen. Kay Hagan.

Here at The Chronicle’s Election 2008 blog, we recently wrote about the controversial advertisement that Dole has been running. It talks rather aggressively and suggestively about Hagan’s alleged ties to “Godlessness,” and has since seeped briefly into the national spotlight as well as incited a direct response from Kay Hagan’s advertising crew. Rafael Miranda, a 68-year-old Hendersonville, N.C. resident, wrote a guest post on The Caucus about this ordeal.

I do understand that unfortunately TV ad attacks are part of the political process but, if they are going to be used, use them on the political issues, not on a personal or religious level. The race between these two ladies is very close. Polls do show Ms. Hagan ahead but the only poll that counts is the one taken next Tuesday. I just hope that those who have not voted yet will vote, not based on what Senator Dole said about her opponent and not on what her opponent said about Senator Dole, but on how one of them will help us through the many problems we are all facing.

Not to be out-blogged by The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune (my hometown paper!) wrote a thought-provoking blog post about the advertisement, too. Here’s the most interesting point they make:

Another way to look at it, however, is as a testament to how far away North Carolina has moved away from the racial politics of Jesse Helms. An African-American is at the top of the ballot for Democrats this year, yet he’s not the focus of the flailing, last-minute Dole ad. Who would have believed that just a few short years ago?

The title of their post, “Dole ‘Godless’ ad shows progress, sort of,” makes an attempt to qualify their point about this situation. Both religion- and race-based lies, hatred, and discrimination have been a part of political campaigns for quite some time. Readers, do you, like The Chicago Tribune’s writer, think the “Godless” ad shows progress of some sort?

Bonus link #1 — Act III: Dole responds to Hagan’s response, saying “Kay Hagan’s faith? Not the question.”

Bonus link #2 — Dole is sued.

Duke early voting station processes record 1138 voters on a busy Halloween, stays open late today

01 Nov 2008, Posted by Alex Klein in News, election 2008, 0 Comments

As reported earlier by The Chronicle’s Zachary Tracer, this Thursday saw the largest single-day turnout of early voters at Duke’s West Union voting location to date. But, yesterday–Halloween Friday–topped Thursday’s 924 by over 200, when 1138 voters passed through the Old Trinity Room’s doors. See Zachary Tracer’s afternoon post for a spiffy graph of Duke and Durham’s turnout.

Today, Saturday, November 1, the voting location processed 907 voters, a number that we expected to be higher. Why? Well, today was people’s last chance to early vote, so we expected to see a high turnout from both lazy voters and those who couldn’t vote during the regular work week. Also, Durham County election officials decided to extend voting hours today by four hours, from 1PM to 5PM.

For a complete summary of Durham County’s seven early voting locations’ numbers, click here (PDF). As you can see, almost 100,000 voters voted early in Durham alone. If 2004’s presidential election results are any indication, around 70,000 of those votes will be for Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama. We tried to find Wake, Orange, and Currituck Counties’ early voting numbers online, but could not. Do any readers know if and where that information is available?

Greetings from Yadkinville

01 Nov 2008, Posted by Ryan Brown in News, election 2008, 2 Comments

Outside Yadkinville - Zachary Tracer/The Chronicle

There’s a lot to separate Durham and Yadkinville, North Carolina–a hundred miles of highway, a few hundred thousand person population difference, and, oh yeah, a 180 degree shift in politics.

Durham County, where Duke is located, was the most democratic county in state in the 2004 presidential election, casting more than two-thirds of its ballots for Sen. John Kerry even as the Democrat suffered an overwhelming 13% loss in the state as a whole.

And then there was Yadkin. This rural county in western North Carolina went for Bush by a margin of 4-to-1 in ’04, logging a larger percentage of its votes for the Republican than any other place in NC.

So it should come as no surprise that this Friday when photographer Zachary Tracer and I visited Yadkin County, we expected to find a place very different than the county where our school is–one where the presence of the Republican party was immediate, obvious and overwhelming.

Instead, things in Yadkinville, the county seat, looked shockingly normal. Our drive into the town took us past a textile mill, a Taco Bell, and a couple of Conoco gas stations. There were more pumpkin decorations than political signs in people’s windows, and the only substantial difference I could find from Durham was the fact that our alternative rock radio station had somehow morphed into one that played exclusively country ballads.

And then, as I talked to residents of Yadkin County–in line to vote, sitting outside barber shops, in stores and the newspaper office–it clicked.

Waiting - Zachary Tracer/The Chronicle

This is not a place where conservative politics take center-stage simply because they’ve never had to. Yadkin County is a place settled in its conservatism, where voting Republican is unspoken and expected. In the office of the Yadkin Ripple, a secretary named Kara Ball told me that she was voting for McCain for one reason. “He’s the Republican,” she said. On the wall behind her was a yellowed copy of the paper from November 1972. NIXON IN A LANDSLIDE, the headline announced. Below it, a chart showed the breakdown of votes in the county–6871 for Nixon, 1591 for McGovern.

Republican Party Office - Zachary Tracer/The Chronicle

And if my experience in Yadkin is any indication, don’t expect anything different this time around. In the nearly four decades that have passed since Nixon’s election, a lot has changed in the county and the country, but Yadkin’s politics haven’t budged. Come Tuesday, their votes will add a few more notches to McCain’s tally.

There won’t be much fanfare about it though. That’s simply not Yadkin’s style.

Dairy Freeze - Zachary Tracer/The Chronicle

Early voting wraps up in Durham

01 Nov 2008, Posted by Zachary Tracer in News, election 2008, 1 Comments

Early voting ended today in N.C. In Durham County, and nearly 100,000 people voted early, 9,361 of them at Duke. Check out the chart above for early voting trends. CNN has a great summary on their website of early voting statistics from the 31 states that offer it.

Polls in N.C. open at 6:30 AM on Tuesday, Nov. 4 and close at 7:30 PM. For more information, check out the Durham County Board of Elections Web site.