NC Duers: What Dem can beat Elizabeth Dole in '08?

[WI_DEM]

She was a great head of the Senate Republican Committee this cycle (for the Dems), I hope she runs her re-election campaign the way she ran that committee!

What democrat(s) could NC Dems nominate who can send her back to NC on her broomstick?

[Captain Hilts]

1. Several. She'll be too old and has been ineffective.

She's done nothing and she was lucky to win her last race. My firm did polling in that race.

[BOSSHOG]

2. Maybe Heath Shuler can run a statewide race

He's rather conservative but kicked ass this year against a relatively entrenched republican. I saw dole on MTP the sunday before the election. She's a typical elected republican, a fucking screaming, rude lunatic.

[Radical Activist]

5. I saw that too.

On all her media appearances she would not shut up and let anyone else talk. I guess that was her tactic but it was really obnoxious.

[cassiepriam]

3. My great Aunt Tillie coud beat her.

Sorry, Liz Dole is so yesterday.
Come to think of it, so are all the repugs.

[GoldenOldie]

6. Hopefully NC will have woke up and discovered that Elizabeth is not one of them

and hasn't been one of them since she left the old home town.

NC voters have been used by Elizabeth just as Tom DeLay has used the very naive Texans have been used to better Tom and family from the local rat killers to being elite DC profiteers. Old Tom couldn't leave Texas fast enough and had his new rat digs in DC all primed and ready to continue the con. Elizabeth Dole is just another rat only permed, plastic surgery and lipstick.

[Doosy]

4. aNY OF 'EM!

[flakey_foont]

7. I thought that I read

she was not going to run in '08?

[LiberalFighter]

9. And if she does run who will the GOP run?

The other senator, Richard Burr was first elected in 2004. He was a state representative, state senator and congressman.

Doesn't look like he ran for any state-wide office.

It looks like as long as they run a candidate that has lived in the state longer than Dole did at the time of her campaign they will be okay. IMO

[joanski0]

18. I read that, too. I was getting

ready to post the same thing. The article said that she was so disappointed that the Repubs lost, that she wasn't running. The powers that be in the Repub Party are probably kicking her out after that piss-poor performance on Meet the Press a couple of weeks ago.

[Eric J in MN]

21. Her office said that rumor was false and she's running. NT

NT

[Eric J in MN]

20. Her office said that rumor was false and she is running. NT

NT

[Lance_Boyle]

8. John Edwards,

if he can see past his ambitions for higher office. Which he can't.

Other than Johnny Pollsniff, all I can say is ABB --> "anyone but Bowles." He's a nice guy, would make a great Senator. Unfortunately, he has to make a great candidate first, and he has failed at that twice in a row.

[cami715]

10. Mike Easley, the current governor would be a great choice.

He has served two terms and will not be eligible for re-election, but he would make a great senator. He is a Democrat.

[The Count]

11. Voting process in that state needs cleaning up. Then - anyone, really.

[unc70]

12. Do you know anything about NC election process?

In NC, we have made considerable progress in our election processes, require voter-verified ballot (a first step), audits, examination and escrow of any software used in voting or counting, and a bunch of other stuff.

So I am interested in knowing what you are referring to now. (While there were a lot of strange things in 2004, we used the obvious ones like totally losing ballots on DREs to change the laws with bipartisan support (and opposition) and we mostly shut up about the red shift and such here.)

[marions ghost]

13. sorry but I have to agree that

was a good point. If you really can bring about ethical and fair elections in North Carolina, then you can run ANY decent Democrat and they will win. NC has been completely manipulated in the past--we'll see if the reforms have any effect. Until then it's rather useless talking about which NC Dems can "win."

[unc70]

14. What specifically would you cleanup in the NC process?

What particularly are you two referring? We have had various problems over the years, but I am curious what you seem to know about our current "voting process" that you seem certain must be cleaned up before any NC Dems can "win".

I agree that most any reasonable Dem candidate should be able to beat Dole or Burr at this point. So, what else do you propose so that NC "might could" have ethical and fair elections.

[marions ghost]

15. really prosecute

election tampering, disenfranchisement, manipulation, obstruction. Lots of evidence but it's never done. Get some action behind the laws. Really clean it up.

E-voting. "Voter-verified" does not mean squat. Audits --hand counts--must be done during elections. The sellers of e-voting equipment do not do real transparency. Bite the bullet and get rid of DREs.

The State Board of Elections cannot be run by partisan officials. Local officials must be scrutinized by independent methods.

Analyze the many ways in which elections are manipulated in North Carolina. Shed some light on this taboo subject. Expose the history and the mechanisms. Get some people studying and writing about it like in Florida.

Just a few ....

[unc70]

17. NC now has hand-counted audits, mandatory. Exposed source code.

I am still puzzled by your statements. Following the 2004 election, NC election law was widely updated. While it was not everything many of us would have like, it eliminated many of the problem areas and was as much as we could get passed in the legislature. As it was, this revised election law required a very aggressive, focused, and persistent effort by a lot of people.

The leaders in this effort were great. The rest of us did what we could to support their efforts and to prevent the lobbyists and special interests from winning. Support and opposition crossed party lines, there were various attempts to sidetrack, hijack, subvert, or kill this legislation. When alerted via the internet to the latest threat, we bombarded legislators with calls, email, visits. (I remember calling one office where, after identifying myself and position, the aide breathlessly said "We know! We've gotten the message!") We had to overcome resistance at the SBOE and at the county level.

NC now requires that DREs have a voter-verified paper trail with mandatory random hand-count audits for all ballot styles (DRE, opscan, hand-count) and with escrowed source code (anything used for voting, tallying, etc.) with examination by election officials and by designees of each party. As a result of these changes, Diebold withdrew completely from the voting machine business in NC. They had tried all sorts of ways to get around or to be exempted from these laws, but failed. They are probably trying now to find a way to get the law changed back to their favor.

We must be vigilant to ensure that the election audits are done properly and that any problems be dealt with promptly. We need to really crawl through the source code. We must expose those people who have conflicts of interest. We need to educate and train county election officals and employees and then pay the employees appropriately for their positions of responsibility.

NC state governemt is mostly controlled by Democrats:
Governor, Lt. Governor, nearly all of the Council of State
Senate: Dem majority increased by 2 in 2006 to 31-19
House: Dem majority increased by 5 in 2006 to 68-52

US House of Representatives from NC: Dems increased by 1 to 7-6 majority
(and nearly got a second with Kissel)

We have a strong state party chairman and have a 100-county strategy that is already showing results in local contests.

Yes, we have some "tainted" elected officals, several by lobbyists/vendors of voting or lottery systems. But I see nothing in any of this that would justify your comments. We have the election audits; most everything else applies to each of the 50 states.

[marions ghost]

22. I don't doubt your facts

as far as they go, but pardon me if I don't see North Carolina going from one of the worst states with an abysmal record on elections --to "all fixed" overnight. For one thing, "voter-verified"--what does this mean --how has this been implemented? How did this work for people in the recent election? There are so many problems with DREs, but North Carolina is going to just limp along with them? (Some states are considering replacing them). That right there tells me that these are stopgap solutions. Like you said, the nasty supporters of this so-called election "system" in NC WILL figure out a way to take the football back. 'Sidetrack, hijack, subvert, or kill'--these are their tactics. They'll be working overtime now. That's all I'm saying.

Prosecution. That's the only thing that election manipulators understand. "Tainted" officials must be removed, not tolerated. When I see that happening, I'll believe that it's a new day in NC.

[unc70]

23. I give up! Follow these links to our experts:

Joyce McCloy www.ncvoter.net

David Allen www.blackboxvoting.com (This is not Bev Harris's site.)

Chuck Herrin www.chuckherrin.com


I know that the first two post at DU.

In 2004, North Carolina had glaring examples of just about every possible way voting systems could fail. Because some of these failures (e.g. completely lost ballots in Carteret County which is majority Republican) negatively affected Republicans too, NC election law was significantly revised to disallow practices and systems that caused the worst problems and to provide for much more transparency and validation (e.g. source code, random audits). Vendor failures could result in criminal charges, large civil penalties, and liabilties for resulting costs to remedy (e.g. new election).

While we still have work to do here, NC is no longer one of the worst states. See the press releases at ncvoter.net. Her site also has links to NC election laws and procedures.

[dysfunctional press]

16. ANY of them.

nt

[WinkyDink]

19. Pick one, any one. Liddy is a non-issue, IMHO.