GrayNewman's blog

I talked about this when it was first announced that Charlotte would host the convention. I was out in Denver in 2008 and they had a huge public park right in the middle of town that served as a great public space for speakers and a good place for marchers to congregate before and after protests. Charlotte has Marshall Park which is a good central park but is right beside the city/county government center and will probably be in the "security zone". I am guessing they will open up a two square block of space that is slated for our new baseball stadium and is county property.

read more: Charlotte Observer

I was interviewed by NPR this morning about the state of the Democratic Party from a grassroots perspective and one of the topics we discussed was how the recent controversy at the state party was going to affect fundraising. I think turnout at the Jefferson/Jackson dinner next month will be telling. There is no way the dinner will bring in the numbers from four years ago but I think it will be a good gauge on what should be expected over the next few months.

This dinner has traditionally been one of if not the largest fundraiser for the state party each year and who shows should be pretty interesting.

Thoughts?

So, the leader of our State House, who is the number 3 person in the line of succession to Governor, is citing Wikipedia and UK law?

I have seen some BS come out of his mouth but this takes the cake:

Asked why employees who resigned would receive a month of additional pay, Tillis said: “I would hope people would think of these two who were in devastating personal situations.”

What about the teachers and other state employees who have been laid off because of YOU Speaker Tillis?

Read more: Charlotte Observer

The Observer's editorial board which is pretty good on our issues, blisters Parker and the events of this past Saturday

Parker’s self-centered decision to stay on as party chairman despite his role in it (sexual harassement scandal), are embarrassing the Democrats and threaten to hurt the very candidates Parker is supposed to help elect.

read more at: Charlotte Observer

They also ran a pretty good editorial cartoon:

One question that I have been asking and have not seen an answer to is where did the money come from to pay off settle with the former NCDP employee?

I would be interested in hearing about any voting problems that occured this past Tuesday. I saw articles about problems up in the Triangle concerning voters being given the wrong ballots, were these paper or machine ballots? Did this happen other places?

BTW - The person posting on here as "Gray" is not me.

That didn't take long. Bill James wants Mecklenburg County to stop offering benefits to same sex couples:

Now that Amendment one has passed it obviously is illegal to offer this benefit as there is now only one ‘domestic legal union’ recognized in the state.

Read More: Pundit House

I have been thinking of starting a petition drive to get an amendment on the ballot to ban divorce just to see if the bigots of both parties will back up their so called love of marriage.

The only reason I am not doing it is because based on the vote yesterday, it just might pass

The Rev. Dwayne Walker, pastor of Charlotte’s Little Rock AME Zion Church, says he’s against same-sex marriage – and against Amendment One.

Rev. Walker has been an advocate for many good causes here in Charlotte for years and has always opened up his church for community events and I am glad that he has come out against Amendment One.

Read More: Charlotte Observer

I have been paying attention to the Charlotte Observer's political endorsements for around 30 years (yeah, I was a political geek even as a teenager) and this is the first time I have seen them recind an endorsement. I have almost always thought their endorsements to be in line with the politics of the districts they are endorsing in and I haven't always agreed with their thought pattern, they didn't endorse me in my first race (won it anyway by 205 votes out of over 200,000 cast.

They have recinded their endorsement of Jim Pendergraph for the 9th congressional district Republican primary and have offered two alternatives, Edwin Peacock and Ric Killian.