The incumbent Senator is Kay Hagan, a Democrat. She had been a State Senator for 10 years and 6 years ago defeated incumbent Senator Elizabeth “Liddy” Dole (wife of former US Sen. Bob “Buy Viagra” Dole) in the 2008 Obama landslide.
She is about as much a North Carolina person as Hillary is from New York. While she was born in North Carolina, her father left his job as a tire salesman in Rural North Carolina for Lakeland Florida, where he became Mayor and a rich real estate developer. Her uncle (her mother’s brother) was Lawton Chiles, the former Governor of Florida. It’s probably just a coincident that her uncle was an influential politician and her family’s sudden arrival of power and wealth.
She did return to North Caolina to attend Wake Forest Law School, did some work in banking, then became a state Senator.
There are 8 Republicans running today – 3 of which are plausible possibility to get in a runoff if the leader doesn’t get 40%
The leader (apparently) is Thom Tillis, the leader in the NC House who passed all that “crazy” stuff like requiring photo IDs to vote (but not until 2016!). He’s the “Republican Establishment” candidate who will follow orders. He probably can win in November. He is not interested in fighting unwinnable battles like repealing Obamacare.
The one that has Karl Rove worried is Greg Brannon. He’s the Freedomworks anti Washington Libertarian. He’s running on repealing Obamacare and defanging the NSA. If you should win and Republicans gain control of the Senate, expect him to have an office in the basement with a view of the furnace. The establishment wants nothing to do with a guy like him and there aren’t enough of people like him to change that.
The wildcard is Mark Harris, a Baptist minister from Charlotte. His platform is very vague, but the ability to get people to the polls might cause a surprise second place for him.
Polls close at 7:30 PM Eastern time
The biggest reform in effect today is shocking – now you are required to actually vote at the precinct where you’re registered! The old rule was that you could vote in any precinct in the state. The time for early voting was also significantly shorter. Absentee ballots still do not require a reason – in fact the State Board of elections wasted money soliciting me to ask for an absentee ballot
There are other subtle changes for the November election – the party that controls the governor office will be listed first on the ballot. Currently, it’s the party that has the most registered voters – Democrats. One button street party voting is now not allowed – people have to vote for each person individually
“The wildcard is Mark Harris, a Baptist minister from Charlotte. His platform is very vague, but the ability to get people to the polls might cause a surprise second place for him.
Polls close at 7:30 PM Eastern time”
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Hmmm.. Let me guess.. I’ll bet Mr Harris is not only for improving the economy, but he is probably against crime as well. Art, please don’t vote for the candidates that want to reduce economic activity and increase crime…. and remember the Democrat motto “Vote early and vote often” lol
Sounds like Mike Huckabee in disguise.
Well, he’s Baptist, that’s probably good for at least 15-20% of the brain dead zombie voters.
and even more of the Republicans.
An interesting little anecdote – my polling place turns out to be the in the gym of the “Church of Charlotte”. By the door there was verbage that since this was a volunteer polling location, please don’t plant signs in the ground or loiter around in the parking lot.
I voted in the early afternoon. I was ballot #114 I think. There was no real reason for Democrats to show up. I will admit that I didn’t study any of the other races. The big race outside of the Senate Race is the contest in the “Guaranteed black 12th congressional district”. The district stakes between Charlotte and Durham along I-85 to ensure that “Voting Rights” aren’t diluted. There is a good chance the winner in the Democratic primary may not be from Charlotte, which changes the politics quite a bit within the Democratic Party.
Official results: (3/4ths counted)
http://enr.ncsbe.gov/ElectionResults/?election_dt=05/06/2014
Turnout was about 11%
Looks like there will be no runoff and the TEA party won’t be invading the US capital any time soon. Rand Paul had endorsed Greg Brannon
I clicked on the link just now, 45.69 % of the Republican voters voted FOR Thom Tillis and 54.31% voted AGAINST him.
Eating strawberry ice cream is not a vote against chocolate ice cream
Most voters voted against Clinton in 1992 yet he still became President.
Most voters voted against Clinton in 1996 yet he still remained President.
Most voters voted against Bush in 2000 yet he still became President.
Rand’s enforcement here won last night:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-05-13/tea-party-hangs-on-with-sasse-s-nebraska-u-dot-s-dot-senate-primary-win
Apparently the decision making ability of North Carolinians hasn’t improved much over the last 151 years. It was 151 years ago this month that soldiers of the 18th North Carolina snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and helped seal the fate of the Confederacy:
http://nchistorytoday.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/friendly-fire-from-north-carolinians-killed-stonewall-jackson/
If Tillis is an establishment man who only does what he’s told, our only hope is that things will be so bad by January 2015 that the “Republican establishment” will finally see the need to stand firm and force repeal of Obamacare and the other progressive policies that have led to over 20% of the population being on food stamps/EBT or unemployment.
Perhaps the solution might be as simple as banning the government from itself from using the word “businesses” as being politically incorrect and instead use the more descriptive term “employers” in its place:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/05/u-s-businesses-are-being-destroyed-faster-than-theyre-being-created/
The difference between socialism and Fascism is – in socialism the government owns the “means of production” . In fascism privately owned companies own the means of production, but government technocrats tell them how to run their business and what to produce.
Thank you. I keep telling people that President Obama isn’t a socialist. 😉
In the end, what difference does it make?
Big difference if you are Brian L. Roberts .
What happened to the early “progressive” notion that allowing one company to dominate an industry is a bad thing? I can’t remember the last time the Department of Justice intervened to prevent a merger. They sometimes demand minor changes or go after a company like Microsoft (but that was 14 years ago)
Mergers were bad before the donations started coming in to the Democrat party. Brian L Roberts is a big time donor to the Dems and golfs with President Obama. He also owns and runs MSNBC which has been known to give the Dems some more than “fair and balanced” coverage.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/04/14/how-obamas-justice-department-selectively-blocks-mergers-by-republican-ceos/
Ah AT&T / T-Mobile is a good example. At the time, I assumed it had more to do with T-Mobile being German. One of the reforms of the 1996 deregulation was to allow non-American corporations to own US phone companies.