Elections

Every time elections start looming, I get big ideas for OrangePolitics. I would really like to provide some useful on-going information for voters throughout the campaign season.

Last year, I put together the first-ever OP Voter Guide, but all it contained was candidate websites, endorsements, and a few related OP threads. In 2003, Will Raymond posted a post-mortem on campaign contributions. These were great, but we can do more! I am thinking of selecting key issues and publishing candidate positions. Perhaps a weekly column in October about the races. What else?

I would like to hear suggestions from you, readers. What kind of information would be helpful for you (and your less-informed friends) at election time? And would you be interested in helping to collect and assemble it?

Speculation about Carrboro's upcoming elections deserves its own thread. The Chapel Hill News today reported that Alderman McDuffee would almost certainly not run again and Gist quite possibly not with Herrera unknown. That leaves at least one open alderman seat and possibly as many as three. We already know that Mike Nelson will step down so there may be a competitive race for mayor as well.

The News speculated about three possible non-incumbent candidates, all fairly well-known: Catherine DeVine, James Carnahan, and Randee Haven-O'Donnell. All three are advisory board veterans, DeVine more associated with the arts, Carnahan and Haven-O'Donnell with planning and the environment.

All three are to some extent status quo candidates within the Carrboro context. The News did not report on any Steve Rose or Jeff Vanke type challengers. Reporter Dave Hart did not indicate whether he beat the bushes and couldn't find any.

Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday April 09, 2005

It is odd to find a Democratic state legislator who, among his first prominent acts in office, would seek the means to elect a Republican to the Orange County Commission. Freshman Rep. Bill Faison has done just that by proposing a district representation scheme that would create a district in which Republican Jamie Daniel was the top vote-getter in 2004.

Odder still is the fact that Faison promotes this legislation without even an attempt at collaboration with the commissioners or with the other legislators representing Orange County, all fellow Democrats.

Faison has been called many things over the past few weeks but "team player" is not among them.

What Faison is up to is pure politics. Faison is well aware that Barry Jacobs won the Orange County vote in last summer's Democratic primary. Faison's margin in Caswell County was enough to give him a scant 647 votes victory overall. To win, he spent three times as much as Jacobs, over $100,000 more, an astounding $39 per vote (the state average is $12.94).