mainchapel's blog

It was a classy touch, I thought, that the first people that Bev Perdue thanked in her remarks tonight were North Carolina's teachers. Especially given all the attention to her record on education over the past few months, it was an appropriate acknowledgement. Over on UNC-TV, I caught the tail-end of Andrew Taylor's comment that credited teachers for promoting Perdue, too. While I kept tabs on the News & Observer's website for updates, I saw this note in the AP story: "In her speech, Perdue thanked the powerful N.C. Association of Educators, who endorsed the lieutenant governor early in the campaign..."

Which reminded me all over again...

While checking in at YouTube to see if I've missed any new television ads, I found a long list of new video clips showing North Carolina teachers (mostly) thanking Bev Perdue for her work on education issues. Each one tells a little story of sorts, mentioning what Perdue has done on a good long list of matters. Even after digging through the newspaper archives two weeks ago, I was impressed with the list.

I'm glad to see, as we're getting closer and closer to May 6, that posts pointing out the real differences between candidates are making it to the front page. As I write, there are a couple of what I'll call "clarifying" posts on the presidential candidates, and I've read the posts of the past week or so outlining careful analyses of the U.S. Senate race candidates. I hope this new comfort level with stating truths will extend to the governor's race too. In my opinion, there's plenty of room to state truths and to "clarify" in that race.

Last week, Bev Perdue announced that she wouldn't run any negative ads through the rest of the primary. I was one of those who applauded that decision, both for the good of the party and for her own good.

What started out as a Saturday-morning experiment turned into a week-long adventure. But I've satisfied my own mind that media coverage during the past several years makes clear Bev Perdue's support for education. Based on what I already knew, I didn't doubt it. But when a television ad came out a couple weeks ago and attacked her as anti-education, and nobody at BlueNC said anything about it, I went looking for facts and figures, and I found a lot of them.

As I wrote before, there's plenty more "light" to let into the ads questioning Bev Perdue's positions on education. In the first part, I highlighted three years' worth of coverage in the press that would suggest to the average citizen that Perdue supports education, contrary to what was suggested in the television ad that has been running.

According to my pastor, somebody famous once said that when we fight against darkness, we only have to bring in some light. I wish that principle was applied to the ads on television. I wrote last weekend about seeing the ad that questioned Bev Perdue's position on education over the course of her public life, and how I went to the library to search newspaper archives on the internet about it. I found a handful of articles that seemed to tell a different story, that Perdue has been a lifelong supporter of education from pre-school through grade school, through college and throughout your lifetime. And I posted some clips from them.

Then, when a friend suggested that I look at the YouTube website for more information, I did that too, and I posted those links this week.

Last week, I pointed out that easy-to-find newspaper articles over a long period showed that Lt. Governor Bev Perdue has long supported education, from pre-school all the way through college. In fact, nothing has ever disputed that until the television ad that has been running for the past week.

Then someone told me to check YouTube, the video website. I did, and I found more evidence there.

I know there's a sort of do-no-harm sensibility in talking about some of our leaders. In fact, I don't post much here because of it. But I think there's a place and time for asking questions and ensuring that accurate information gets shared.

So there's an ad on television that says strange things about Bev Perdue's legislative record. And the topic of the ad is education, which is, candidly, Perdue's strongest suit. Her credentials, her professional career and her legislative work all point to a leader who's for education.

I read Gary Pearce's blog post on Thursday, and read James's post on Thursday night, that included a response note from Perdue or the people who work for her.