Despite the fact that Tim Dunn quit campaigning for Congress in the 8th district and endorsed his opponent, Larry Kissell, his name will appear on the ballot in May's primary. This is due to the fact that North Carolina law does not allow qualified candidates to quit a race. Congressional Quarterly detailed the problem:

State election law dictates that candidates who have filed and qualified to run cannot remove their names from the primary ballot once the filing deadline passes. That occurred on Feb. 28.

A diarist at Kos has started up $5 Friday to drum up last minute contributions on this last day of the first quarter filings. If you haven't reached into your pockets to support our good Democratic candidates (and incumbents), this would be a most excellent time to do so. Purty please? Give to Larry Kissell. Give to Heath Shuler. Give to David Price. Give to Brad Miller. I'm having trouble finding the campaign site for Mel Watt. Come on, folks. Show 'em a little (or a lot of) love.

From today's News and Observer lottery story.

Rudy Guliani is coming to Raleigh, and you're invited! To see him! If you have $125! Thanks to Ruby for passing this along. (Now, I would pay $125 a plate to go see Ruby speak.) Here's the deets:

Senator Charles W. Albertson was named the Legislator of the Year at the Governor’s Conservation Achievement Awards presented recently by the N.C. Wildlife Federation. Sen. Albertson was among a group of 18 individuals and organizations honored for their work supporting North Carolina’s conservation efforts.

The New Bern Sun Journal

The Crashing the Gate Tour has Raleigh on its calendar for May 12th. They still do not have an event planned. I e-mailed some bookstore owners to see if they were interested, but anyone else with ideas should put them in the comments.

Howard Dean is extending his fifty-state effort with a nationwide canvassing on April 29th. With the success of the North Carolina Democratic Congressional candidates linked to the fortunes of the national Democratic Party, and the success of taking back the house linked to Shuler and Kissell's ability to unseat Republicans, events like this will be hugely important in determining the direction of our country. Please visit the DNC's website to see how you can

Democratic representatives have started openly jockying for Jim Black's speaker position. Is there any point in our agitating for a particular candidate, or is this inside baseball all the way?

Today's action plan is simple. I am going to list four people who have supported full funding of IDEA. I will give you their contact information. All four are Democrats (surprise!) and all four are running for re-election.

Today, we will thank them for their efforts on behalf of disabled children and encourage them to continue to take a stand.

Please see contact information below the fold...

There were a couple of high profile candidates that decided not to run in NC-5 against Virginia Foxx (R), but we do have four Democrats in a primary battle to run against her. The Winston-Salem Journal highlights the race in this article. You will have to click the article to read the whole thing, but I will quote the introduction of the candidates:

The candidates are Mark Glen, an architect in Winston-Salem; Syn-di Holmes, a nurse who lives Mocksville; Roger Kirkman, a public-information officer in Winston-Salem and the 2004 primary runner-up; and Roger Sharpe, a former state senator from Harmony who once worked as the special assistant to the director of the Office of Civil Rights under the Carter administration.