primary

After President Obama's declaration of support for marriage equality for gay couples, we should pick up on this political progress and RUN with it. Don't let our disappointments hold us back, and don't let the election on Tuesday splinter our potentially larger coalitions--which would benefit all our causes including gay rights.

And just as quick, there's a horse race again for the Democratic nomination in NC-11. Hayden Rogers, Rep. Heath Shuler's Chief of Staff announced he would run today.

Hayden Rogers, a Robbinsville native and longtime chief of staff to Congressman Heath Shuler, announced his candidacy for Congress Wednesday for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District.

It was just a couple of nights ago that Keith Olbermann was challenging us, in one of his “Special Comments”, to rise up in the streets and take back this country.

He pointed out that the only way those on the left were going to be able to fight against those who are looking to get all “Tea Party” is to be as angry and as organized and as aggressive as the Tea Party community, and if we’re smart, we’ll take him up on that challenge.

But if you really want to push “professional” Democrats to the left, most especially this President, and you want to do it in time to impact the ’12 cycle, the only way to do it is to run a candidate in primary contests that either moves the conversation your way…or leaves you with a surprising new Candidate.

And right here, right now, we actually have a chance to do exactly that – and that’s why, in today’s discussion, I’m going to challenge Olbermann right back.

Low turnout and inside baseball hang-wringing got you down today? The always excellent Chris Fitzsimon of the NC Justice Center's Policy Watch blog has a great piece today looking at the November 2010 elections from 30,000 feet.

The tea partiers shouldn't plan a post election celebration party yet...

There will no doubt be interesting stories in the primary results. Politics always brings some surprises. But don't let the efforts of the pundits convince you that the results are another indicator of a looming Republican landslide in November.

An afternoon mental health break that is well worth any NC political junkie's time.

If you can suffer through the puppetshow at the beginning, there is a nice short BlueNC shout out in the middle of this Stateline article.

http://cms.stateline.org/working/details/story?contentId=473783

Making room in the statehouse press tent
By Melissa Maynard, Stateline.org Staff Writer

In the mid-90s, a reporter from the Carolina Journal Online was briefly admitted and then ejected from the North Carolina statehouse press corps, which issues the passes. A legislator had complained that the news outlet’s parent organization, the John Locke Foundation, had partisan conservative leanings and its primary purpose wasn’t gathering news.

Hello again to all my BlueNC friends. Hope y'all been doing great, and enjoying some of the nice weather we had earlier this week.

I wanted to make sure everyone got to check out this great editorial today in the Charlotte Observer.

"When the senator got a burr under his saddle"

Curiously, Burr prefaced his remarks by saying he had no personal objection to the hearing going on. That's ridiculous. It was his objection that halted the hearing.

Oh wait, but there's more:

This last week and a half has been crazy. Trying to move forward but unsure how to proceed. Less than 24 hours before the North Carolina 5th District Democratic Convention and victory is awaiting a handful of provisional ballots from Forsyth County ...

Patrick McHenry, dissuaded with the fact that he can't come up with anything to beat back recent photos made public by Mike Rogers/Brandon Greeson, has now taken his time to begin inventing letters and insinuating that Cass Ballenger, his predecessor, is senile (though he voted for McHenry).

The story starts when suddenly, out of the blue, the former Congressman decided to endorse Lance Sigmon over Patrick McHenry. In the Republican camp, that's known as "suicide", partially because Patrick McHenry will sic every single person he can on you- and that's exactly what he did. Seeing the signed/dated letter, McHenry claimed it was fake (and insinuated it was forged)... until Ballenger heard about it and made a Phone Advertisement for Sigmon (Recording in the YouTube video). Wuh oh. So what does McHenry do? Falsify his own letters!

I thought some of y'all would be interested in this revival of the Tarheel Tavern: