Ellie Kinnaird has announced that she will running for re-election to the NC Senate this year. In past years she claimed that she was ready to retire, but only if she could find a suitable female replacement.  Here's the press release:

North Carolina State Senator Ellie Kinnaird
Contact: Senator Ellie Kinnaird
ekinnaird1@nc.rr.com
919 824-5240

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

SENATOR ELLIE KINNAIRD SEEKS RE-ELECTION

"The 2010 mid-terms are less than 3 months away. Join Speaker Hackney and Sen. Kinnaird for a discussion about the current legislative session and the upcoming election, and find out what you can do to keep NC blue this fall." 

Dan Pollitt was a dedicated activist and leader in our community for decades. He passed away this morning after a lifetime dedicated to peace and justice. My heart goes out to his wife Senator Ellie Kinnaird and the rest of his family. But the loss is all of ours. Pollitt was a beacon, lighting the way forward from just a little ahead of the rest of us.

Here's the Independent's profile of him from 10 years ago:

Chapel Hill attorney Bill Massengill nails it: "He's the aggressive-liberal gentleman. Dan can aggressively press his ideas without offending people." Even when those ideas are quite hopelessly out of fashion--as they so very often are.

Take, for example, Pollitt's defense of free association amid Red Scare panic. Or integration in the Jim Crow South. It took the times some time to catch up with Pollitt on those two.

From the Chapel Hill Herald news briefs:

CHAPEL HILL -- State Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, Democratic candidate for North Carolina Senate District 23, will discuss her campaign on July 14 at Town Hall Grill at 4 p.m.

Town Hall Grill, located in Southern Village in Chapel Hill, has launched a nonpartisan community issues forum called "The Village Voice," which will feature various political candidates in a series of seven events.

Attendees are invited to reserve their seat using the online reservations form at www.thetownhallgrill.com. The Village Voice is sponsored by The North Carolina Center for Voter Education and MyNC.com.

I know as a long time observer of campaign finance issues, it is rare that a major corporate political action committee gives to an incumbent’s opponent in a primary. So I noted with interest that Duke Energy’s PAC gave Senator Ellie Kinnaird’s opponent $2000 in this primary. Ellie was the only state senator to vote against Senate Bill 3 which, although sold as renewable energy bill, was hijacked by the utilities so that it shifted most of the financial risk for building new coal and nuclear plants to the ratepayers.

Ellie saw this bill clearly for what it was, spoke out strongly against it, and clearly incurred the wrath of Duke Energy. As Democracy NC found in its research, in the four years ending in 2006, Duke Energy and Progress Energy averaged investments of $10,000 per North Carolina legislator in campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures.

It doesn’t work with our good senator. She represents us instead. Let’s keep it that way.

As far as I know, tonight's Chamber of Commerce/EmPOWERment/League of Women Voters event at Chapel Hill Town Hall is the only chance to see Senator Ellie Kinnaird and her challenger Commissioner Moses Carey in a direct dialog before their primary contest. I'd like to tell you more about the event, but only the LWV web site even lists it on their calendar, and they offer less info than the Chamber's press release (which is posted here).

Apparently it will also be broadcast on WCHL 1360 AM (live?) so if you can't make it tune in there and watch this space for updates from yours truly, who is bringing her laptop.

This is a novel way to campaign! ;-)

With John Herrera joining Mike Nelson and Moses Carey, the tally is up to three very qualified Democratic candidates queuing up to run for Ellie Kinnaird's NC Senate seat in 2008. But Senator Kinnaird is still waiting for her Princess Charming who will be able to maintain female leadership in that seat.

I certainly share her concern about the small and shrinking number of women currently elected to the Senate (in fact, I wish she had raised it sooner) but I also have to wonder whether having a Latino, an openly-gay person, or an African American would also make a strong contribution to that body.