Orange County

We're just four days out from the election now, so I'd be interested to hear some predictions on a couple fronts:

Obviously the most intense race locally is the well funded Superior Court race between incumbents Carl Fox and Allen Baddour, and challengers Chuck Anderson and Adam Stein.

-One thing I'll be watching with interest Tuesday night is Carl Fox's performance. During both the primary and the general, Fox has run the lowest profile campaign of the contenders. In the primary he finished first by a large margin nonetheless, likely owing to his name recognition and magnetic personality.

But that was the primary, and the wider electorate in the general is less likely to be familiar with Fox's record and personality. I think he'll probably still finish first, but by a much smaller margin, at least percentage-wise, than in the spring.

Orange County is taking a little longer than Chapel Hill did to select and hire a new Manager. Slow and steady wins the race...

The Orange County Board of Commissioners cordially invites the public to attend a Reception to Meet the Finalists for County Manager on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the Jury Room at the New Courthouse, 106 East Margaret Lane, Hillsborough, N.C. (prior to the BOCC meeting at 7:00 p.m. in the F. Gordon Battle Courtroom in Hillsborough). Each finalist will be given a chance to make a presentation between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in the Battle courtroom.

Other than this press release (whose link I suspect will not work when the page changes), I can't find any other info on their web site about the manager search. Anyone know who the candidates are?

In what the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau has highlighted as a national publicity coup, Mark Kleinschmidt takes viewers on a tour of Chapel Hill in an episode of the LOGO Channel's U.S. of Ant show:

Ant talks politics with Mark, an openly gay city council member in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He shows him around town and is soon introduced to Thomas, a student at Chapel Hill who was the victim of a gay bashing.

I don't doubt that the Visitors Bureau is correct about the public relations value of this segment for its audience. Says Director Laurie Paolicelli, "Special thanks to Mark and Mike for carrying the torch and making national viewers/travelers even more aware of our area."

We locals will find the bussing and hugging a salutary alternative to the serious business of mainstream TV journalism.

[Note: those of you who've been around as long as he has will forgive Mike's forgetting that he first ran for Alderman in 1989, not 1993.]