Got this Sunday from Randy Voller - thought I would share it. He recommends a number of things here.
Message from NCDP Chair, Randy Voller
Due to the NCDP's efforts with the Blue Ballot statewide we won three supreme court seats, two appellate court seats, and if we could have had more time to pull our folks together on the third race we would have won that appellate court seat, too.
John Arrowood has received the endorsement of the North Carolina Democratic Party Executive Council to return to the NC Court of Appeals. He is running in a field of 19 candidates that includes almost an equal number of registered Democrats and Republicans. The NCGOP endorsed former judge John Tyson. The candidate who receives the most votes wins the seat that came available when Chief Judge John Martin announced his retirement.
The North Carolina Democratic Party has either forgotten to renew the party's domain name, has decided to change the domain name, or has decided to shut the site down. Either way, earlier this evening searches for information on NCDP's website returned errors. Party email accounts linked to the domain are also down.
Candidates, volunteers, and party members rely on the site for election information, party documents, and as a means to stay connected. It is hard to believe the party would let this happen in the heat of an important election year.
Making fun of the mentally ill is never OK. I do not care who you are, ridiculing people living with an illness or disability is despicable. Unfortunately, Thursday, that is exactly what an elected NCDP Congressional District chair and popular liberal blogger did in an open, public post on Facebook.
With all of the missteps of NCDP Chair Randy Voller and the attention on infighting within the North Carolina Democratic Party, it should not go unnoticed when a county party does something well. On Saturday voting members of Senate District 37 met to select Senator Dan Clodfelter's replacement in the NC Senate and voting members of the SEC and CEC from the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party met to select a new third vice chair of the party. I kept waiting for typical Democratic Party nastiness to rear its ugly head, but party chair Robin Bradford and the rest of the leadership team did a very good job of running an orderly meeting and a transparent selection process.
Most of you know that the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party has had some issues centered mainly around rushed precinct organization that occurred before the new selection of the replacement for the Mecklenburg County Sheriff. Today, the MCDP is taking the next step in its fresh start with newly appointed volunteer precinct chairs who will preside over reorganization meetings tonight at 7:00 p.m.
Democratic Party organizational meetings for ALL Mecklenburg County precincts will be held on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 7:00 p.m. Precinct meetings will be held at the precinct polling location, unless public notice of an alternate location is posted by 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 12th. You can apply to be a temporary precinct Chair, for the purpose of organizing your precinct.
But you have to apply by 5:00 pm tomorrow!
For more information, go to http://www.ncdp.org or call (919) 821-2777 and push "0" for the operator.
So, it seems everyone has their own version of a 100 Counties strategy. This is the first post in a multi-post series. I was planning on holding off on this since I am calculating the change in turnout based on counties that had all seats filled versus those that have only some seats filled. But, since there is such interest on the topic right now, I thought I would go ahead and get the ball rolling. I have two straights days of meetings coming up, but I will get part II out when I can. click picture to enlarge 100 Counties, Part I: Why?
With all apologies to Chris Bowers who inspired me with his 50-state project.
In 2004, in the midst of the hardest-fought Presidential Election any of us have ever experienced and perhaps that the United States of America has ever faced, the North Carolina Democratic Party (meaning you and me) ran six empty Senate seats and twenty-nine empty House seats. In 2006 we fared even worse, losing 31 House and 10 Senate seats without even running a candidate. The 50-state project has been debated online and in the “Halls of Power”, but I am a firm believer. I am going to suggest, with that in mind, that we in North Carolina should push for and accept nothing less than a candidate in every race in North Carolina in 2008. And, we need to start now. This is part one of two on 100 counties.
1. Why a 100 Counties Project?
2. Who to run and how to run on the cheap.
Republicans in North Carolina have been having a rough fall—it turns out that ethical shortcomings and lying to constituents don't win you any popularity contests. Add that to the President's falling approval ratings and Democrats' recent fundraising successes and you've got a good reason for GOPers to stay in bed.
Desperate to turn the spotlight elsewhere, NC Republicans are attacking former Congressman Frank Ballance, who was indicted for diverting State funds to personal use (and pled guilty to a negotiated charge). At issue is money that Ballance raised for the NC Democratic Party, which the National Republican Congressional Committee likes to call "dirty" money. While they manage to mention the cash in the same paragraph as Ballance's trial, the GOP has done nothing that I know of to show that the funds Ballance donated were in any way related to the funds he misused.
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