By Kirk Ross
Staff writer
North Carolina is on the verge of a red-hot primary: nervous, energetic, looking up, looking forward. Carrboro, especially. This is for real, for family, for keeps.
Made my way through town last week on another near-end-of-semester Friday. They’re all the same in a way. You see people gathered in clumps more this time of year. Some of it’s forced and ceremonial, but then there are the farewell gatherings of people who grew to like each other as time wore on.
I might be a townie, but I’m damn proud of the fact that so many make lifelong friends in this little corner of earth. Nice thing for a place to be remembered for.
When I got to Town Hall there was music and barbecue in the air and all kinds of folks starting to gather. They were mostly young adults, lots of new parents and their offspring. The little playground in the shade was packed and its own mini-circus. Across the way, the Town Hall early-voting site was doing a brisk business. That day, it would prove to be one of the busiest in the state.
The crowd was spread across the commons, with the majority of people inclined to hang out in the cool shade of the bandstand and covered areas.
If you surveyed those gathered, I doubt you’d have found a yes vote, even a heavily qualified “yes†for Amendment One. But everyone knew somebody, more often than not a relative in some other spot in this state, who was likely to vote to put a clear abridgment of the rights of others into our constitution. And not even the most ardent opponents of this blatant attempt to use fear to divide us was under any delusion that there were other people, equally happy to call Carrboro home, willing to do so as well.
We used to cast around the phrases Old Carrboro and New Carrboro like we knew what they meant. It was a kind of code for conservative and liberal. But I doubt even Old Carrboro will come out in droves to support this awful thing.
Just before heading down to the rally against Amendment One, I got a look at the early-voting turnout. You can’t find out how people voted, but you can get a read on who is turning out and where. The charts I looked over were promising. The top three towns for turnout were Durham, Asheville and Chapel Hill. Durham was leading the state in a big way. The Bull City had posted a turnout that rivaled that of the entire Triad. Things have tightened up a little since then, but if you were looking for enthusiasm – and I was – it was plain as day.
Contrast this with what we heard leading into the primary. The flyover media has rightly pegged us as a battleground state, but they’ve got it all wrong about whether young voters will turn out like they did in 2008. This amendment fight has changed the dynamic in a way few predicted. On the day I wandered through the commons, the top precinct in the state was over in Durham around Duke University.
Statewide, the average age of those voting in the primary was 59. In the Duke precinct it was 23. The same thing was going on here in Orange County, where the precincts around campus were showing signs that young people were turning out.
I don’t know how this vote will turn out. When the rest of the state checks in on May 8, there may be a tide of yes votes swamping all the no votes from here and elsewhere. But ultimately the future will prevail over the past – if not at the ballot box, then in the courts.
I’d rather we get to it now. It’s high time for a clean break from the politics of division.
This bill IS ILLEGAL. PERIOD! The lawmakers pushing this bill need to have charges of treason against the citizens rights pressed on them. To violkate the rights of the people is TREASON!!
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE FASCISM!!!!