ChrisKromm's blog

Yesterday, about 20 members of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity -- with nearly as many members of the media in tow -- gathered in downtown Durham, North Carolina to protest "Wall Street corruption" and the financial reform bill now moving through Congress.

Why Durham? Because it's home to the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer advocacy group that has pushed for tougher banking rules.

Quick: What causes a politician's popularity to tank? A controversial vote, weak performance, general voter unrest ... all can cause poll numbers to drift downward. But for your approval ratings to really bottom out, it takes a scandal.

Over the last few days, residents of Wake County, N.C. -- the site of a nationally watched battle over its school diversity policy -- have been receiving calls from phone pollsters asking for their views on the county's education future.

Yesterday, Facing South editor Sue Sturgis received one of the automated poll calls. But the question of who's behind it is a mystery: The number traces back to a line in Conyers, Georgia that doesn't pick up, and at no time during the "robo-poll" was information provided about who was doing the survey.

Such anonymous automated calls are likely in violation of North Carolina consumer protection laws, which require that the "name and contact information" of the person or group making the call be clearly identified.

You might have missed it -- the media largely has -- but in the final hours of testimony yesterday at the N.C. State Board of Elections' hearings into former Gov. Michael Easley (D), Democratic attorneys unleashed an unexpected bombshell: Testimony from a former IRS criminal investigator that at least three Republican candidates for governor failed to disclose dozens -- perhaps hundreds -- of campaign flights in 2004 and 2008, the very charge that helped launch the investigation into Easley.

When Sen. Kay Hagan (NC-D) announced earlier this month -- after months of vacillation -- her support for a health care reform bill that included a "public option" to compete with private insurance, advocates of reform were thrilled.

Not so happy: Key forces in the health industry who are still fighting bitterly -- and have spent millions of dollars in lobbying, advocacy and contributions to key politicians -- to preserve the status quo.

Newly-released federal campaign finance records reveal the intense interest health industry leaders have focused on Sen. Hagan, a first-year senator sitting on a key committee crafting the reform legislation.

Last week, Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake reported that Democratic plans to push for a "public option" for health care reform -- a publicly-financed plan to compete with private insurance -- were hitting an unexpectedly difficult wall: newly-elected Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina.

Cross-posted at Facing South

At today's memorial for John Hope Franklin at Duke University, playwright Emily Mann -- daughter of historian Arthur Mann, a close friend of Franklin's -- related one of many illuminating personal stories about the pioneering historian and scholar. In a conversation about the North Carolina political landscape, someone asked Franklin "Where did Jesse Helms come from?" Franklin quickly replied, "From hell" -- "not missing a beat," Mann said.

Over the last week, Kay Hagan has been hammered by critical robo-calls from two operations: Freedom's Watch, a non-profit founded by GOP operatives in 2007, and the Free Enterprise Alliance, an offshoot of the Associated Builders and Contractors, whose PAC is the third-biggest contributor to Republicans in the country.

But instead of calling North Carolina voters, maybe the anti-Hagan robo-callers need to get on the phone and talk to each other. Because on at least one of the key issues Hagan is being attacked over -- immigration -- the two groups are sending voters a mixed message.

Polls show Sen. Barack Obama has a commanding lead in North Carolina -- but are operatives in the N.C. Democratic Party favoring Sen. Hillary Clinton? They are on at least one big issue: a proposed debate between the Democratic presidential candidates.

This week, N.C. Dem leaders have been demanding that Obama accept a debate hosted by CBS on April 27 -- a date favored by Clinton -- while ignoring earlier plans by CBS and the Obama campaign for an April 19 match-up.

On top of that, some are claiming behind the scenes that Obama doesn't want to debate in North Carolina, and calling into question his interest in the state.

What's going on here?

CORRECTION: We had an Excel problem which botched our figures on party registration. We correctly reported that 46% of new registrations since January were Democrat. However, only 17% of the new registrations were Republican. The remaining 37% were unaffiliated.

This is the first in a series of Facing South posts covering the upcoming North Carolina primary elections.

Like other states, North Carolina has witnessed a surge in voter registrations this election year. Nearly 89,000 new voters have registered to vote in the last three months, according to new statistics released last Friday.

Who are these new voters, who will be deciding the now-critical North Carolina primaries on May 6?