Real Jobs NC

Even Pope himself doesn't lay it on this thick:

It's painfully hard to understand why detractors demonize a man for providing affordable goods in low-income areas and why they want to jeopardize the jobs of the 7,000 people he employs with a boycott.

Okay, Burgetta, let me explain it to you, since you apparently don't have the capacity to grasp how political influence impacts the lives of citizens:

Chris Heagerty speaks out in an LTE:

I have copies of these ads. They were mailed to thousands of voters in my district. They falsely claimed, among other things, that I had voted for a billion-dollar tax increase before I ever served a day in the legislature. They clearly say at the bottom: "Paid for by Real Jobs NC. ... Donors include ... Variety Stores, Inc.," which is Pope's family company. I have at least seven more of these mailers that all list his company as a funder.

Which was in response to this bald-faced lie:

Via Mark Binker's blog Capital Beat:

A coalition of groups sympathetic to Democratic and progressive causes is getting ready to mount a counter offensive against a Republican-linked effort to bash legislative Democrats seeking re-election.

Enter Real Facts NC, which is currently organized as a North Carolina nonprofit corporation (link). “It is an organization in process,” said Michael Weisel, a lawyer who frequently does election law work for Democratic causes. He would not talk about the group’s backers on Friday, saying they’d be made public once the group starts operating.

As soon as I can get more details I'll update this.

Reaffirming the Foundation's policy of misdirection:

Now is the time for a robust, open, public policy debate on how to reform and improve state government. Instead, N&O editorial page editor Steve Ford, in his Sept. 5 column "Money and rhetoric from the right," complained bitterly and maligned businessmen, such as myself, for supporting nonpartisan independent public policy organizations such as the Civitas Institute and the John Locke Foundation, and citizen groups such as Americans for Prosperity. One of the nicer things Ford said about AFP's over 50,000 volunteer activists in North Carolina was that they were a "rough crowd," that attempts to stoke fear and loathing.

I guess "open public policy debate" means sending fliers to people's homes that tell lies about the votes of legislators.

In defense of our business climate:

The website for Real Jobs NC, which is seeking to toss out alleged Democratic spendthrifts and replace them with virtuous Republicans, declares that “North Carolina is currently rated as having one of the worst tax environments for business in the Southeast.”

If that's so, why has Site Selection magazine – whose subscribers are corporate executives who make decisions about where to locate plants – ranked North Carolina at or near the top of the list of states with the best business climate for nine years running? We must be doing something right.

PPD executive Fred Eshelman rings the NASDAQ bell this morning, a carefully orchestrated media event to mark the PPD’s 25th anniversary (optional confetti $500, balloon drop $4,000). If the name Eshelman rings a bell it’s because he’s the force and the finance behind RightChange.com a conservative political committee active in the 2008 races run with NC State Senator Fletcher Hartsell and State Representative Jeff Barnhart of Cabarrus County. Their most recent contribution to political dialog was “Attack of the 50 Ft Pelosi”, a cartoon world where Democrats have long skinny necks and Conservatives have none.