2010 Senate Election

In what may be a first for North Carolina politics, the first debate of the 2010 U.S. Senate election will include all ballot qualified candidates. The N.C. Bar Association is sponsoring a debate in Wilmington tomorrow which will include Libertarian Mike Beitler, incumbent Republican Richard Burr and Democrat Elaine Marshall.

News 14 Carolina will carry the debate live at 11 a.m. The channel is only available to Time Warner Cable digital customers.

At a time when the Democratic Party is taking a lot of heat from the left I felt it an appropriate time to state why the party still has my support. On the local level, we have just this year narrowly elected a democratic, progressive, & first openly gay mayor of Chapel Hill by about 100 votes (& there were other democratic wins across the state in November). On the statewide level the Democratic Party fought off the anti-marriage equality constitutional amendment keeping North Carolina as the only southern state without one. On the back of democratic legislators & signed by the governor we passed the anti-bully bill (which included lgbt kids, something the republicans strongly opposed) by just one vote, & we passed the comprehensive sex ed bill. And the governor used her first veto to keep transparency in government. On the national level it’s a little more dicey, but given the options, the democratic party is the better one. Sure my preference is to end the wars sooner than later without more troops, but the building capacity plan to get out on the 2011 time-table (a word progressives fault for & conservatives opposed during the last administration) isn’t completely unreasonable.