Does this mean that you will be resigning your seat in the N.C. House if you win?

... lone democrat to vote against the cigarette tax increase that passed a few years ago. To me that shows a conservative, 20th century mindset that seems ill suited to running a (hopefully) progressive 21st century state party.
Big Tobacco ruled this state for far too long, got away with far too much and has killed far too many people.

Bill, I think many of us would appreciate answers to the below questions. Thank you in advance.

1. How can you devote the time needed for this role, which is a problem many of us see has plagued past Chairs, when you are a lawyer, a legislator and then adding this role? That is three full time jobs if done well.
2. Past Chairs have also been plagued by inability to speak out when the GOP speaks out; how can you do this with your job as an attorney and won’t that cause issues with you as a sitting legislator?
3. Will you keep Andrew Whalen and the staff he assembled? There are issues there. His performance is as lackluster as the current Chair and he hired district representatives who “suddenly” became Democrats over lifelong Democrats. They need to go.
4. Are you going to be another puppet of Scott Falmen?
5. The Democratic Party took a rather hostile stance against very qualified candidates running against incumbents this round – not the stance was not “formal” but it was there. This is wrong and this is against the ideals of our Party which should provide for opportunities for everyone. How will you address this issue next time around?
6. How will you recruit more women and minorities to run at every level?
7. How will you repair the relationship with SEANC, Chambers of Commerce and other groups? While SEANC dealt with Holliman, it appears the Democrats in the House are holding this against state employees. This rift needs to be addressed and the “blame SEANC for no money” position needs to go.
8. How are you going to address public perception that the NC Democratic Party is corrupt with so many issues over the past 5 years and still ongoing?

While I think you do a good job in the House, you would be a more impressive candidate for State Party Chair if you were willing to give up your seat. This looks to be more about you than the Party and that is what is wrong with NCDP at this time. David Young was more concerned about his job than the Party so he did not speak out when he needed to and even the night of the elections there was no comment from him.

Only pick someone who has a real resume of experience in the party as a officer at the precinct, county, district or state level - which would include SEC and DNC members. No more elected officials or candidates with no party organization experience - no matter who endorses them.

Look for candidates for all offices that have no ties or umbilical cords between any campaigns or elected leader - from Obama, through congressional candidates, down through Bev and other state elected public officials.

This also means no more covering up for ethics problems or front men for the money laundering operations.

We need someone who will follow the NCDP Plan Of Organization to the letter, and if the plan needs to be re-written to make it clearer and easier to follow, let's do it. Then we can tweak it from time to time to suit situations as they come up. No more ignoring the Plan.

Legislators have been using and abusing the volunteer base of the Democratic Party for years. I don't see the wisdom of having the NCDP chair come from a group of people whose leadership (the caucuses) have told candidates not to hand out party slate cards, or from folks who claim that the Party has no business crafting a message - only the candidates can do that. That's liked putting the inmates in charge of the asylum!

We need someone who can work full-time for the grassroots party volunteers, officers and activists - not the candidates, campaigns or the consultants. The Republicans paid Fetzer a full-time salary and he gives them their money's worth, even though he takes his marching orders from Art Pope & Co. Someone who is already a part-time legislator and a full-time lawyer doesn't really need to add yet ANOTHER responsibility to his plate. And after what happened in Wake County since 2009, I for one will not be voting for any candidate for chair who plans to be running for an elected public office in 2012.

We should be working hard to get folks elected to public office who will work to turn our party platform into public policy - not make campaign promises to get us to work and vote for them, then break them when the lobbyists knock on their doors! I don't see that there is any way that an elected public official can or should be running the state party. I don't care how it was done in years past. We are not living in the same times.

Yes there is more money to be made by sucking up to the big-money donors, but the other side is going to win that fight. We need someone who can assemble and inspire the troops to get out the vote for every Democratic on the slate - not just the well-financed ones. We need someone who can go on camera and deliver our message as often as possible - not someone part-time. And we need experienced staff who know the state and the people in it - and who are known by the party activists! We have enough great active Dems in the state who have earned the job more than any out of state folks who have no party experience whatsoever!

It's time to tell the big money donors that we need them to fund the same network of foundations and non-profits to support and market the Democratic Party that Art Pope is doing pretty much single-handedly. OrgFA should have been doing part of that job, instead of just blindly getting folks to support the President's "agenda du jour".

No offense to anyone in particular, but these last 2 years were a nightmare. For me it began in June 2008 when ObFA began to tear down the DNC's 50 state-strategy across the country, and tore down the NCDP's 100 county-strategy here in NC (does anyone remember "Constructing Victory"?). It continued when ObFA promised the Wake Dems (and I am sure other county parties) the list of ObFA volunteers after the election if the parties gave information to the campaign - then went back on their word, claiming since some vols weren't Dems and only supported Obama (Plouffe estimates this at 20%), we couldn't have any of the names.

Come on now - we all know what this was really about. The Obama campaign wanted to keep those names for themselves, so they could turn their campaign volunteers into their own private army of advocates - who would not have any other distractions to keep them from doing exactly what they were told to do, and nothing more (like support someone else who supported the things on Obama's original agenda after Obama began deviating from it). Then in 2011, OrgFA would turn itself back around into ObFA to run the president's re-election campaign. But whatever you call it - OFA has a miserable track record of election losses for anyone other than President Obama. Clearly what works for the "One" doesn't work for everyone else down ballot - and that's a significant losing record that some Obamaniacs blame on a weak party, weak candidates, etc. How they can blame the Democratic Party for those losses after 2006 and 2008 is beyond me. 2008 was great for some Dems, but we only got 60 votes in the Senate and too many of them were Blue Dogs easy for the lobbyists to buy off!

And while not having the Obamaniacs questioning the direction he was taking, they also had to deal with the Democratic Party activists who still had the means to make significant changes on their own independent of Obama or his campaign - through electing their own officers, and voting on their own platform and resolutions. Problem is - Obama or OFA couldn't just shut the doors and change the locks - so they starved the party of leadership and resources. Over at Goodwin House, I'd say that we were about 5-7 warm bodies short of being up to full strength - which is about the same number of paid staffers statewide over at OrgFA.

So what did we have after the 2008 win? Jerry Meek knew he was on his way to a real full-time paying job, marriage and kids (though still no answer on the diaper duty yet). Progressives and other party activists wanted to find someone who had Jerry's background in party activism and commitment to the grassroots. Several people indicated an interest in the job, including Jim Neal and perennial favorite David Parker (who again deferred to the Governor's wishes) when Bev Perdue endorsed David Young to be NCDP chair. Following a whilrwind campaign for the job funded by Nexus Strategies, David won - beating out longtime party activist and Congressional District Chair Luke Hyde and former Kissell campaign manager Danni Montgomery.

What happened next? Within days after losing big time in 2008, the GOP was claiming that 2012 began the day after the election, and they meant it. ObFA sat on their asses for months, before deciding to be absorbed into the DNC to preserve it for Obama's re-election campaign in 2012. In our state party, we did nothing. Most of the staff from Jerrys' term had left shortly after the election to get new and hopefully better paying jobs in the new administrations. Only Kristen Ward and Jerimee Richer were left over, and their days were numbered. David didn't hire a new Executive Director until April or May when he hired someone from Heath Shuler's staff (who was dating former ED Caroline Valland). His next hires were Kerra Bolton, brought back to Goodwin House after working a few months for Janet Cowell. He hired Jon Lucas as the State Political Director, and C. Payne Lucas as state field director (from ObFA and his dad's relationship with Obama in DC). Jon and C. Payne were going to hire 5 regional field directors, and proceeded to hire a crew of people who were mostly working on the Obama campaign who came in from out of state. There was really only one person in those hires who had any real party experience, and word is that one of the hires wasn't even registered as a Democrat before the 2008 election. All 5 were produced at the late August 2009 SEC meeting - and 3 of them were dispatched to Charlotte to work on the Anthony Foxx campaign that the party threw $750K at to win. By the time of the 2009 general elections, both Jon and C. Payne Lucas were gone, and we lost one RFD. There was still no real effort to build the party in 2009, or really get out the vote for the critical 2009 local elections at the state level and in many counties.

There was no effort to build the party in 2010 - it was all about winning elections. What happens when we don't win elections AND we don't spend time building the party? We get doubly screwed!

We need a chair who worked for the party like Jerry Meek did. The gov's last choice for state party chair was a bomb - we now have to undo the damage caused over the last two years. We need a full-time chair who will work for the Party.

And I will be honest - in my mind, so far there is no ideal candidate that meets all my requirements. That means I have to make some decisions on what I will be hearing from the candidates. But I for one will not be voting for any sitting elected official nor for someone who plans to run for elected public office for chair of the NCDP or my county party, and I urge my fellow Democrats to follow my lead.

BTW - Herbert L Hyde brother of Luke Hyde and cousin of Wallace Hyde was Chair of the NCDP. He was elected to the NC Senate and House. He served as Chair of the 45th precinct and the 11th Congressional District. So he would have been a legislator, lawyer and chair.

The questions are posed. Rep. Faison can answer or not. They were put together by a group of about 20 people so they are there for the live meeting or otherwise. He was previously answering questions.

Herbert L Hyde brother of Luke Hyde and cousin of Wallace Hyde was Chair of the NCDP. He was elected to the NC Senate and House. He served as Chair of the 45th precinct and the 11th Congressional District. So he would have been a legislator, lawyer and chair.

Different people have different talents. This is a different time, a different era with many suspicions about fundraising, conflicts, a need for the use of social media (which is not advised for lawyers) for the Party to engage people ... so a different time with different challenges calls for different leaders. Would like to hear how Rep. Faison can balance the three roles given today's conflicts, issues.

Then let's hear from Bill Faison as to how he is the leader for us all now.

Everyone is waiting to hear. Winning election as a legislator is not the same as leading the Party, imo. And there are many Dems out here who do not know Faison. I am in Durham so he is nearby but still not well known.

No one is asking him to carry any baggage for anyone else. We are simply asking him how he will be different, how he will balance his roles, how he will handle potential conflict, how he will lead. All fair questions to be asked of him to answer. People running for office get asked questions, do they not? And, presumably, he is the one who will need to answer.

I am told that Wake County had someone running for office while leading the County Party and that resulted in conflict with fundraising and message so there is at least one example rolling through the emails as a comparison that did not turn out well.

Frankly, many of us want to see something entirely different from the Party. Like Ken Lewis leading the Party .. and some may still nominate him from the floor.

But Rep. Faison has announced so let's hear the answers - Jan. 10 is a long time from now to wait. Minds will be made up.

And we have questions for David Parker as well. He will have to balance two roles and some of the same potential for conflict can occur there so we would like to hear from him on all the same questions posed earlier.

Perhaps someone can get him on here as well.

But when someone puts it out here on this forum, it would be nice to see a response as I am quite certain others have become interested beyond our "20 person group" as evidenced by emails noting the same questions.

So far I have not seen any candidate for the NCDP Chair address the miserable failure of the NCDP re party building and the platform & resolution process.

OFA started gutting Dean's 50 state and Meek's 100 county party-building strategy in June 2008. We can all see the results of that action - big losses in 2009 and 2010. What will you do to reverse the destruction of the party-building process started by OFA in 2008 and continued by the NCDP & OFA in 2009, and then joined by the Coordinated Campaign in 2010?

So far you have only talked about the Democratic Legislative Agenda. What about the NCDP Platform and Resolution Process? Over the years, it's become evident that our elected public leaders just don't give a damn about the NCDP Platform and the Resolutions process. You ask us for help in getting elected, but then you ignore the will of the NCDP as expressed through our Platform and Resolution process. What will you do as NCDP Chair to specifically to make the other elected Democratic officials at all levels (federal, state, county and local) pay attention to the NCDP Platform and Resolution process?

A little history is in order. I recall that Jerry Meek ran to do many things - and one of them was to get Scott Falmlen out of Goodwin House and not have any responsibility for doing the books. Unfortunately, Caroline was not able to do the books, or couldn't learn, didn't want to learn. So Scott stuck around doing the books. Andrew had the same problem - and so Scott is still doing the books - which is the reason why he was over in Goodwin House all last year working on responses for the Easley hearing with the SBOE.

Furthermore, there wass some sort of an internal inquiry within the Party which deals with consultants who work for the Party and also for other candidates. Suggesting that working for both is conflict and advising that if you want to consult for the Party you can't possibly consult for a candidate, campaign or a 527 group.

Someone posed the question about Scott but we did not know all of these ins and outs, just that there are conflicts. Number one, a quick scan through the finance reports shows that his firm does work for a lot of candidates including some with contested primaries so that means he works for some Democrats against others, candidates and the Party. What happened to this inquiry? This is one of the reasons that the Party has a bad reputation among the average North Carolina voter. It looks bad and smells bad.

is not intolerably obnoxious, is a good Democrat, but has seen retribution for voicing thoughts and ideas. I have been in touch with your NCDP campaign person via e-mail so we will talk soon.