Update on Obama Boone HDQs

We've received word that the local Obama office will be located at the corner of King and College streets, across from First Baptist Church and next door to Beanstalk, upstairs above what used to be the Mayflower beauty shoppe and the Mountain Pirate.

Obama HDQs in Boone?

We learned over the weekend that the Obama '08 North Carolina crew is looking to open an office in Boone, if they can find available space in a good location.

If you've got a place you'd like to offer, contact me directly (jww@boone.net), and I'll give you a number to call.

The Crusading Dan Besse

Winston-Salem Councilman Dan Besse, one of four vying for the Lt. Gov. nomination on May 6th, is profiled in today's N&O.

He's been a champion of environmental protections and has used his lawyer's license to help indigent clients. He also started his political life as a Republican and switched parties after Jesse Helms won his Senate seat in 1972.

He also happens to be from Hickory.

James Carville Shuts Up

The scene was a private reception for James Carville before his speech at the Young Democrats convention in Raleigh on Saturday.

As James Carville is wont to do, he proclaimed to the assembled guests, all of whom had paid $50 apiece for the opportunity, that Kay Hagan, running for U.S. Senate, would make a great replacement in Washington for Liddy Dole.

Only problem was that Jim Neal, Hagan's chief primary opponent, was one of the paid guests in the room.

Neal spoke up: "We have primaries here in North Carolina. We don't have coronations."

At which point, James Carville fell silent. "It was the first time I've ever seen him quiet," Neal said.

Keeping Hillary Alive?

Ex-Prez Bill Clinton made it to all seven stops yesterday in North Carolina. If anything his speeches got longer as the day wore on. He was only about an hour late getting to the last venue in Asheville, and then spoke for an hour! Things didn't conclude in Asheville until around 11:30 p.m.

He seems to have had good crowds along the way, including in Hickory in perhaps the most Republican area in the state. In Asheville, about 2,000 were allowed into a high school gymnasium, but some were turned away, including a handful of Obama supporters in T-shirts sporting that candidate's picture.

About 500 people listened to Bill in Salisbury, the alleged home of Sen. Liddy Dole. In Gastonia "about 800 people withstood the stagnant heat in a gym without air conditioning."

The trip was a stab through the heart of white working-class North Carolina:

In Hickory, Clinton passed a trailer park on the road to St. Stephens High School. There in heavy Republican country he appealed to working class people, many of whom have lost jobs since he left office.

"I like to come to places like this," he said. "These are the places that have kept [Hillary] alive."

Cruella de Ville 'Splains Health Insurance

Jamie Linquist, a nursing student at Gardner-Webb's satellite campus in Statesville, asked Congresswoman Virginia Foxx to clarify her position on national health care. "If you are not in support of universal health insurance," Linquist said, "then what are you in favor of?"

See if you can figger that out from Foxx's response:

...Foxx said that the number of Americans without health insurance was typically given as 47 million.

She broke that number down by saying one-third of it was made up of illegal immigrants, one-third was of those who were uninsured for only a portion of the year but not all of it, and one-third was of people who have access to insurance "but choose not to take it."

"Choose or can't afford?" another student asked.

Foxx compared health insurance to homeowner's or automobile insurance and said health insurance was initially designed for "catastrophic" events and "not for maintenance."

"A huge portion of health insurance funds go into the last 18 months of a person's life," Foxx said.

Excuse us, Madam, for dying.

By her accounting, apparently there's NO ONE without health insurance except by their own stupid volition. And of course illegal immigrants, who deserve whatever bad happens to them.

And by the way, Madam Foxx sees herself as Cinderella.

When did the wicked stepmother get to go to the ball at the palace?

North Carolina Campaign

Hillary Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said earlier this week that "the campaign doesn't consider North Carolina a must-win state."

No?

That's why, we guess, the whole family -- Hillary, Bill, and now Chelsea -- are criss-crossing North Carolina like the hash marks on a honey-glazed ham (and if our Democratic delegates aren't 115 pieces of big juicy Southern pork, what are they?).

Bill Clinton said last week that the nominating race for Democrats may come down to North Carolina. We suspect he was closer to the truth than Wolfson.

Incidentally, the article linked above says Bill Clinton now plans to be in Asheville Friday, so his schedule is obviously very fluid. We hear Hickory, Kannapolis, Salisbury, Gastonia, High Point, and Greensboro are also all in the running -- all on Friday. So some of these possible touch-downs must be feints that won't pan out. Seven stops in one day? Sounds unlikely, especially for the slow-moving Bill.

And especially since we're NOT a must-win state.

Candidates Carter & Hamby Speak in Watauga

Fifth District congressional candidates Roy Carter and Diane Hamby appeared today side by side at the local Democratic Women’s Club luncheon, spoke about their campaigns (for the privilege of taking on Virginia Foxx this fall), and answered questions from a max-capacity crowd at the Broyhill Inn. Carter and Hamby will face one another in the May 6th Democratic primary.

They were cordial to one another, pledged to support the eventual nominee, whoever that turns out to be, and elicited laughs and good-natured groans as they focused their comments on the last seven years generally and on the performance of our incumbent congresswoman specifically.

“I’m absolutely positive that Virginia Foxx’s broom was made in China,” said Hamby, in one of the bigger laugh lines of the day.

Roy Carter said he officially announced his campaign last Labor Day for a reason: he comes from a laboring background, and Virginia Foxx has rarely supported legislation that helps laboring people. Plus she’s voted against every program that would help the children of laboring and poor people, including proposed expansions of Head Start and S-CHIP insurance.

Both Hamby and Carter put emphasis on the costs of health-care and the crisis of uninsured Americans in today’s economy. “Too many people are one health-care crisis away from financial ruin,” said Hamby, and Carter said that many years ago the death of his teenaged brother had “broken my family, because we didn’t have insurance.” This country has got to do better, and CAN do better, both candidates agreed.

They also agreed that Congresswoman Foxx has turned her back on Watauga County, which did not support her in the election of 2006. “While cheerleading for the tax breaks for the richest two percent of Americans, Foxx votes against every program that could help 5th District citizens, including veteran services for members of our armed forces,” Carter said.

Hamby agreed that the big issues are all “pocket-book” issues, from the prices of gasoline and food to the loss of jobs.

Carter came out in favor of protecting the Globe area below Blowing Rock from the Forest Service plan to sell off the timber on hundreds of acres to private interests. “That’s another thing Virginia Foxx has turned her back on,” said Carter.

Senate Candidate Jim Neal Profiled

This morning's N&O contains an in-depth profile of the candidate.

Most interesting ... that he moved back to Chapel Hill and found he couldn't afford a house there, so he's renting.

Best quote comes from the treasurer of 2004's Kerry-Edwards campaign committee, for whom Neal raised money four years ago: "I consider him a very decent man and one who is in politics for the right reasons."

Says Neal, "This is the year when Americans will own our democracy."