As time goes by

31 Oct 2008, Posted by Ben Cohen in News, election 2008, 1 Comments

About a year ago, I was invited to a dinner party at Pop’s Restaurant, where the conversation inevitably turned to politics. Fond of good wine and better conversation, the host initiated a roundtable discussion of the presidential election, which was still 12 months away and had not yet even made it to the primaries.

The questions were simple: Who will be the nominees, and who will win?

Regardless of age, sex or party affiliation, there was an overwhelming (and perhaps unanimous) consensus. Of course, if the election had obeyed our predictions, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain (and their running mates) would not be barnstorming North Carolina because they wouldn’t have accepted the nominations at their parties’ conventions and partly because the Tar Heel State might not even be a key battleground state.

After all, all eight students at that dinner anticipated a matchup between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.

McCain? Barely mentioned just months after his campaign was left for dead. Not yet identified as a maverick.

Obama? Appealing, but too inexperienced to top the Clinton machine. Not yet hailed as an inspirational tour de force.

(For the record, the brief discussion of vice presidential candidates prompted two references to Bill Richardson and Obama himself. Even the most politically-savvy Duke students hadn’t heard of a certain hockey mom from Alaska last November.)

And while none of these musings qualify for breaking news in any sense, it does underscore one lesson we’ve all learned from this grueling race: Opinions change and perspectives shift every day. Because as long as five days seem now, imagine how long these last 12 months feel.

Protected: Early voting at Duke hits a new high

30 Oct 2008, Posted by Zachary Tracer in News, election 2008, 1 Comments

Dole accuses Hagan of being “Godless”

30 Oct 2008, Posted by Anna Lieth in News, election 2008, 2 Comments

Though many races around the country have seen an increase in negative campaign ads in the last few days before the election, one in North Carolina has caught the attention of the national media, including outlets such as CNN, Fox News, and the Huffington Post.

United States Sen. Elizabeth Dole, a Republican, began running an ad this week that accuses her Democratic opponent, North Carolna State Sen. Kay Hagan, of being “godless”.

Dole’s add refers to a September fundraiser Hagan attended at the home of Wendy Kaminer and Woody Kaplan, members of the Secular Coalition of America. Kaplan is also a member of the Godless Americans PAC. The group states supporting candidates who do not believe in God as one of its objectives, along with removing references to God from the Pledge of Allegiance and U. S. currency.

The group also works to support candidates who believe in a separation of church and state, regardless of those specific candidates’ religious beliefs. The ad features a picture of Hagan and a voice-over of another woman, not Hagan, saying, “There is no God.”

The Hagan campaign has expressed outrage, threatening to file for a “cease-and-desist-order” against Dole if the ad doesn’t stop running.

Prominent Republican campaign strategist Ed Rollins called Dole’s ad “desperate” on CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight” show, saying that the Senator should be ashamed of herself.

Negative TV ads are not new to North Carolina Senate races. Former Republican Sen. Jesse Helms produced a famous TV ad in 1990 titled “White Hands,” showing a white worker crumpling up a job rejection notice and blaming it on minority quotas.

This isn’t the first time that Dole has been accused of unsavory campaign tactics. Early on in Dole’s ultimately successful 2002 Senate run, she was the target of a Democrat-funded ad criticizing her participation in a fundraiser hosted by former Enron CEO Ken Lay. Dole’s campaign later donated money to a fund for jobless former Enron employees.

The “Godless” ad is only one in a series of negative campaign ads in the Dole-Hagan face off. An earlier pro-Hagan ad funded by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee features two elderly men sitting on a porch in rocking chairs arguing about whether Dole is 92 or 93. Dole’s campaign complained that the ad was ageist, although the ad does ultimately explain that the numbers refer to Dole voting with Bush 92% of the time, and being ranked 93 in effectiveness out of 100 Senators by an outside agency.

Despite widespread shock in response to Dole’s recent ad, the trend toward mudslinging isn’t new, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime soon.

Celebs stump for Obama

30 Oct 2008, Posted by Naureen Khan in News, election 2008, 0 Comments

Ashley Judd - James Lee/The Chronicle

A flurry of A(ish) list of celebrities have recently made cameo appearances on campus to stump on behalf of Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Chad Coleman, Deirdre Lovejoy, and Jamie Hector from HBO’s TV drama The Wire mixed and mingled with students Monday on the Main Quad, conveniently positioning themselves near the early voting site in the West Union Building.

Edie Falco, who plays Carmela on The Sopranos, followed suit Tuesday, also appearing on Main West to usher in last-minute voters and making an eleventh hour appeal for their candidate.

Today, actress and two-time Golden Globe nominee Ashley Judd, best-known for her roles in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Double Jeopardy and Someone Like You, as well as Valerie Biden-Owens, sister of Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden and Congressman David Price appeared on the Plaza, drawing the biggest crowd out of the three events.

The relatively low turnouts at these mini-rallies may be an indication that voters are suffering from the symptoms of campaign fatigue, brought on by an unusually long and arduous election season. Check out Emma Miller’s full coverage of the event in tomorrow’s Chronicle.

David Price - James Lee/The Chronicle

Duke Votes Election Party

30 Oct 2008, Posted by Shuchi Parikh in News, election 2008, 1 Comments

Still making plans for election night?

Be sure to stop by the Duke Votes: Election Party Tuesday night from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. in the Sanford Building. Hosts promise free food, drinks (including beer) and viewings of the Colbert Report. Plus continuous coverage of results on four large screens, with Republican- and Democrat-themed rooms (showing Fox News and MSNBC, respectively).

More of the party-goer type? We hear a number of house parties are in planning, with plenty of election-themed drinking games. (Example: Substituting number of electoral votes of states with seconds of drinking if your chosen candidate did not win the state. So if the candidate you didn’t vote for won North Carolina, you would drink for 15 seconds. Best to be prepared for what you may get into).