Showing posts tagged “2008 election”
Matt Saldaña ·
24 Jul 2009, 9:09 AM ·
3 Comments
At first glance, the Green Party’s agenda for its 2009 National Meeting in Durham is a bit, well, all over the map. Major topics include single-payer health care, mountaintop removal mining, a former presidential candidate’s excursions into the Gaza Strip, and–in the words of steering committee member Holly Hart–”strategic messaging workshops and planning.”
“We wanted to talk about strategy, and what messages are really resonating with the American people,” Hart explained.
2009 is an off-year, so the Greens can afford to try out different strategies and see what’s working–and what isn’t.
On the national level, last year did not work so well. Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney finished sixth, behind Barack Obama, John McCain, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin, at roughly 153,000 votes (roughly one-tenth of one percent). By contrast Ralph Nader received more than 2.8 million votes (or, 2.7 percent) as a Green Party candidate in 2000.
Green Party candidates were elected to 22 local offices throughout the country in November 2008, though most of those elections were non-partisan, according to Phil Huckleberry, chair of the Illinois Green Party.
This year, Huckleberry said 132 Greens are running for office, including “What Would Jesus Buy?” author and comic preacher Rev. Billy Talen, who is running for mayor of New York City.
In Illinois, Huckleberry said no one had ever been elected to a partisan office as a Green but “we fully intend to do that in 2010.”
“Just about anything can happen,” he said.
Update (7/25/09): The spelling of Rev. Billy Talen’s name has been corrected.
national, politics 2008 election, Billy Talen, Cynthia McKinney, green party
Fiona Morgan ·
20 Nov 2008, 2:30 PM ·
Comment
Confirming what we knew by Election Night, Democracy North Carolina has crunched the state’s voting numbers and found:
- Obama, Hagan and Perdue each led by more than 300,000 votes after Early Voting, then lost on Election Day
- North Carolina’s turnout rate was 70 percent, the highest since 1968. Wake and Durham counties were in the top 10.
- The “under-vote” problem turned out not to be a big problem. There was widespread fear before Election Day that many people would fail to vote for president because that race is not included in a straight party ticket vote in North Carolina. But under-voting affected only 1 percent of ballots cast, after election officials — and the Obama campaign, of course — worked hard to educate voters.
This information is not yet posted on Democracy NC’s web site, but you can see the numbers here.
For more election analysis, check out Facing South’s outstanding coverage.
Uncategorized 2008 election, early voting
Fiona Morgan ·
7 Nov 2008, 11:20 AM ·
1 Comment
Kay Hagan’s victory — and North Carolina’s new hue — has Dems sizing up the U.S. Senate seat of Richard Burr.
Burr had a 27 percent approval rating as of July — ouch!
So who will take him on?
BlueNC says it’ll be Roy Cooper.
North Carolina, politics 2008 election, Kay Hagan, Richard Burr
Fiona Morgan ·
7 Nov 2008, 11:00 AM ·
1 Comment
North Carolina elected its first woman governor, and women will soon hold six out of 10 state executive positions.
But while even Fox News anchors take a moment to celebrate the milestone Barack Obama has achieved as the first African American president, you won’t find as much joyful acknowledgment from the women sweeping our state government.
“I did not want anybody to vote for me because I’m a woman,” auditor-elect Beth Wood told The N&O. “It just so happened that I was the most qualified for the position.”
Janet Cowell, who beat Republican Bill Daughtridge to become state treasurer, did note that “it shows that women have made strides” in the financial industry.
Meanwhile, most of us are distracted with new revelations about Sarah Palin’s ignorance, incompetence and temper tantrums. The way McCain’s campaign is throwing her under the bus, it almost makes me feel sorry for her.
The many competent, capable women in politics must be hoping Caribou Barbie will just go away. We need attention to women’s policies, not their wardrobes.
North Carolina, politics 2008 election
Matt Saldaña ·
6 Nov 2008, 5:28 PM ·
Comment
This afternoon, several major news organizations–including the New York Times, NPR, CNN and NBC–projected Barack Obama the winner of North Carolina. The news org’s cited Obama’s roughly 14,000-vote lead over John McCain, and independent analyses of the remaining provisional ballots. The N.C. State Board of Elections, which was not immediately available for comment, has not yet called the race.
North Carolina, national, politics 2008 election
Matt Saldaña ·
5 Nov 2008, 1:55 PM ·
1 Comment
Read the Indy interview with Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger at indyweek.com.
Munger drew 120,000 votes in the North Carolina governor’s race, which Bev Perdue won. However, Munger’s vote percentage (roughly 3 percent) qualifies the Libertarians to be on the ballot in North Carolina for the next four years. Triangulator was the first to report that Munger will run for State Senate, Distrct 15 in 2010.
North Carolina, politics 2008 election, Libertarian, Mike Munger
Fiona Morgan ·
3 Nov 2008, 1:56 PM ·
Comment
It’s supposed to rain tomorrow.
Public Policy Polling says that hurts McCain’s chances of winning North Carolina.
Their poll shows a 10-point lead for Obama among those who took advantage of early voting. McCain has a strong lead here among those waiting for Election Day. “It is always better to have actual votes than hypothetical votes so there’s no doubt Obama has the edge right now.”
Uncategorized 2008 election, early voting, Public Policy Polling
Fiona Morgan ·
1 Nov 2008, 8:45 PM ·
Comment
Someone put a casket outside a polling place in Craven County, NC, and on that casket, someone put bumper stickers with Barack Obama’s face and the word “O’NO!”
State NAACP chairman Rev. Dr. William J. Barber said in a statement, “The casket had apparently been placed there for at least several hours, if not days. There is no telling how many voters it had frightened away. It appeared to be an obvious threat to Sen. Obama—a warning to him to stay away from North Carolina.” County sheriffs removed the casket on Friday, reports said.
WRAL reports that the county’s Director of Elections Tonya Pitts said the casket was originally for “Joe the Plumber” with a sign that read “taxed to death” — somebody put the Obama stickers on later.
Oh, well, that explains everything.
Barber called on both parties to denounce the casket prank, and to his credit, the state Republican Party spokesman Brent Woodcox did, telling The N&O, “All decent, law-abiding citizens of North Carolina are outraged by this incident.”
North Carolina, politics 2008 election, Barack Obama, NAACP
Matt Saldaña ·
31 Oct 2008, 3:33 PM ·
2 Comments
In a 2-0 decision (with one abstention), the Durham County Board of Elections approved the State Board of Elections’ recommendation to extend early voting hours until 5 p.m. Saturday. Meanwhile, other counties, including Orange and Currituck, refused.
(Update: According to the State Board of Elections website, Wake County has also extended voting until 5 p.m. at all of its early voting sites.}
“All over, we were getting calls–dozens and dozens–saying, ‘You’re open till 5 o’clock now,’” Mike Ashe, the director of Durham County Board of Elections, told the three-member board. “To not open until 5 o’clock would be disastrous, because everybody now believes we have. Plus, we’ve got a lot of people wanting to vote.”
Ashe, who is not a voting member on the board, was referring to media reports that the SBOE ordered counties to extend hours until 5 p.m. Saturday; in fact, the state agency had merely recommended the extension. However, each county’s board of elections was required to meet and decide on whether to extend hours. If one board member approved of the extension, the director was required to implement the change–even if he or she did not agree.
In an Oct 31 e-mail obtained by the Indy, SBOE Chairman Larry Leake informed elections directors that they must go forward with the 5 p.m. deadline, unless their board unanimously disapproved. [etheridgeletter (PDF, 16 KB]
“If a member feels that the one stop sites should remain open until 5PM, I trust that you will fully implement that decision,” Leake wrote in the letter, addressed to Mary Etheridge, director of the Currituck County Board of Elections, and forwarded to SBOE staff and county directors. “If it is impossible for you to do so, you, of course should resign.”
Continue reading »
Durham County, North Carolina, Orange County 2008 election, N.C. Board of Elections
Matt Saldaña ·
31 Oct 2008, 12:42 PM ·
Comment
Alamance County will be one of just 59 jurisdictions in the country the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division will monitor Tuesday. Could recent flare-ups over 287(g) be to blame?
Update: A DOJ spokesman said he could not disclose why the counties and cities were selected for monitoring because it could signal the potential abuses officials may be looking for.”The whole purpose is to unobtrusively protect ballot access,” he said.
Read more about the Voting Rights Act, DOJ’s Public Integrity Section and federal election-related laws.
North Carolina 2008 election, Department of Justice, immigration
