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6 - 12 Apr, 2008
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Next UPDATED: APR 9, 2008 SHAME Former Democratic Representative Thomas Wright was convicted this week: Wright gave his wife a slight wink as armed deputies led him from a Wake County courtroom Monday. It was the former legislator's only reaction to learning he will be in prison until at least 2014. Wright's conviction on three felony counts of obtaining property by false pretenses ended a yearlong investigation and prosecution of accusations that he took out a fraudulent bank loan and put charitable contributions into his own bank account. Republicans will obviously go on the attack that corruption runs throughout Democratic elected leaders in Raleigh. Gary Pearce frames the attack well: For Democrats, this is supposed to be our can’t-lose year – in North Carolina and nationally. But the bad news keeps piling up in Raleigh. You can just see the Republican ads this fall. First there was the mental-health debacle. Now it’s the probation system’s inability to keep up with dangerous criminals. We have the charges of corruption and pay-for-play being traded by Richard Moore and Bev Perdue. And a lottery oversight commission that – oops, an oversight! – never met. Sometimes, 2008 resembles 1972, the first time this century Democrats lost the Governor’s race. As in 1972, we have a bitter primary. Then it was Skipper Bowles and Pat Taylor. The split never healed, and Jim Holshouser won. As in 1972, there is the stench of corruption around Democrats in Raleigh. Then it was Governor Bob Scott’s cronies. Now it’s Jim Black and Thomas Wright, plus the flood of bad news. If the Republicans nominate Pat McCrory, I’ll be even more concerned. He is the kind of moderate, non-right wing Republican (like Holshouser and Jim Martin) who could get elected Governor. Fred Smith, not so much. Go, Fred, go. Pearce’s fear of a divisive Democratic Party gubernatorial primary coupled with a McCrory as the Republican nominee is support by early polling. In a head to head matchup, both Perdue and Moore are simply tied with McCrory: Perdue/Moore and McCrory at 41% and undecided voters accounting for 18%. The early shape of the developing General Election for statewide offices is another indication that Democrats across the State need to be out registering new Democrats. They could well be the difference in November. POLARIZATION While Gary Pearce focuses on the challenges for Democrats in State offices, Jerome Armstrong at MyDD (a respected blog) focuses on challenges for national Democratic candidates in North Carolina. He writes (emphasis added): The Bruins and Tarheels each got crushed, so there goes my finals bracket. In other NC news, a couple of polls come out of NC that show conflicting numbers, and a debate that probably won't happen.
Rasmussen has blow out numbers:
April March Obama 56 (47) Clinton 33 (40) Not Sure 11 (14)
That's a huge swing to Obama:
There remains an enormous racial divide in the North Carolina data. Obama leads 86% to 9% among African-American voters. Clinton holds a 47% to 38% advantage among white voters in the Tar Heel State. A month ago, Obama led by fifty-three points among African-Americans while Clinton led by twenty points among White voters.
With black voters lining up behind Obama like that, Clinton would need to win about 70 percent of the white vote to take the state. Rasmussen also finds that "56% of Clinton Voters Say They’re Not Likely to Vote for Obama Against McCain", which seems absurdly high, but when you break it down, it results in about 18 percent of NC Democrats voting Republican in the Presidential, which isn't that uncommon in the state. But it of course means that NC is easily McCain's in the GE. If Clinton is the nominee, the polls are showing that a significant percentage of Obama supporters would not vote for her. This is the critical conundrum for North Carolina Democrats. If this split can be healed, Democrats have an opportunity to make North Carolina competitive in November; if not, Armstrong’s conclusion that “NC is easily McCain’s” is correct. Equally important, the split will have potential consequences for down ballot races. _____________________________________________ UPDATED: APR 6, 2008BEST YET! Democratic voter registrations advanced last week by the largest weekly number TPJ has reported to date – a net 7,500. Democratic Party loss of voter registration share is now increasing (highlighted below) over the percentage at the start of 2008. This is excellent news for a Party that had been rather consistently losing voter registration share.
The last week breaks down as follows: 12,227 Total
new net registrations The statistics for year to date:
96,940 Total new net registrations Several critical observations: 1. With the Republican Presidential primary decided, Republicans have no “draw” for new registrations. That Republicans would underperform Democrats, who have a hotly contested primary, would be expected. Yet, achieving only 10% of all net registrations since the beginning of 2008 denotes that citizens are not energized by the Republican gubernatorial primary, which is being fiercely contested. 2. Democrats are clearly breaking the historic trends by registering higher percentages of citizens than Unaffiliated voters. The trend seems to be more Democratic every week. For example, year to date, Democrats have a net gain over Unaffiliateds by slightly over 4%. Last week, the Democratic Party advantage was over 23%. 3. Looking at TPJ’s chart at the end of this article, carefully note that Republicans do not lead in new net voter registrations in any county to date. Democrats lead Unaffiliateds in 39 counties. Two critical questions: 1. Voter registration for the May primary ends on April 11. Can Democrats keep registering voters at the pre-primary levels? In TPJ’s estimation, NC Democrats need some 150,000 new net registrations as one milestone in making NC competitive in November. Democrats must slightly improve existing performance; as good as it is, to achieve that goal. 2. Will Republicans engage voter registration after the May primaries? If not, they may well fall below 33% before the November General Election while Dems may achieve 46%. The 2008 trends are all promising for Democrats. Those trends will continue only if Democrats go out make it happen. Below is TPJ’s full Voter Registration Chart through April 5. Where does your county stand?
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