
{"id":3601,"date":"2008-10-09T07:58:12","date_gmt":"2008-10-09T15:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=3601"},"modified":"2008-10-10T09:52:07","modified_gmt":"2008-10-10T17:52:07","slug":"for-the-record-10908","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2008\/10\/09\/for-the-record-10908\/","title":{"rendered":"For the record 10\/9\/08"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Our rapt attention<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Around town Tuesday night, the crowds were a little bigger \u00e2\u20ac\u201d packed in at some places \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and a lot quieter than usual.<\/p>\n<p>At least they were quieter for about 90 minutes as the two candidates for the presidency squared off in Nashville for the second debate.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nThe same attentiveness held, we imagine, in thousands of living rooms in our area, although we know of a few where heckling and grousing punctured reverence for the ritual.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve sensed that something is a little different about presidential politics this year in North Carolina \u00e2\u20ac\u201d you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re right. Of course, there is the historic nature of the two tickets and the rather urgent need for the country to move on \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and away \u00e2\u20ac\u201d from the past eight years of unrelenting arrogance, aggression, mismanagement and partisan decision-making. <\/p>\n<p>Even more than that, there is a major difference in that the Old North State is truly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in play\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for the first time in quite awhile.<\/p>\n<p>You hear the national pundits refer to us as a red state or a deeply red state when, in fact, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re quite purple; and in the Triangle (and certainly southern Orange County), quite blue. But let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s put the crayons down for a moment and look at the numbers.<\/p>\n<p>The closest a Democrat has come to winning since Jimmy Carter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <del datetime=\"2008-10-10T17:37:57+00:00\">1972<\/del> 1976 victory was in 1992 when Bill Clinton came within 20,000 votes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d less than 1 percent \u00e2\u20ac\u201d of defeating George H.W. Bush. Since then, the state has been solidly behind the GOP at the top of the ticket.<\/p>\n<p>In 1992, the election also had an X factor in the candidacy of Ross Perot, who drew 357,864 votes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 13.7 percent \u00e2\u20ac\u201d many of which likely would have broken heavily for Bush.<\/p>\n<p>There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a third-party candidate this year, Georgia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bob Barr. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a blip on the national story, but here and in a handful of other states where the major party candidates are within a few percentage points his candidacy may make a huge difference.<\/p>\n<p>If you look at recent polling, Barr\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s showing strength in the western mountains, parts of which identify closely with Georgia, and the 910 area code with those coastal-plain areas that have long been rich lands for Republicans. If Barr shaves off a few percent in these parts of the state \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and polls now show him at around 7 percent in those areas \u00e2\u20ac\u201d he may deprive John McCain of the margin he needs to carry the state. <\/p>\n<p>Demographic trends are also working in Democrats favor, with much of the growth here fueled by younger, college-educated workers \u00e2\u20ac\u201d two groups that lean more toward Barack Obama. Then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that extensive registration push the Obama campaign has launched that has added hundreds of thousands to the voting rolls in North Carolina.  Heavily democratic Orange County has seen voting rolls jump by 12,000 since January 2007. <\/p>\n<p>The proof of the strategy will be evident soon as early-voting sites across the state open up. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see pretty quickly whether the new surge of registration translates to a similar surge of actual votes.<\/p>\n<p>We suspect it will and that the seriousness and attentiveness on display Tuesday night is an indication that many of the people that cynical campaign strategists count on to sit on their hands will insist on being counted this time too.<\/p>\n<p>One quick reminder: If you want to vote on Election Day \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Tuesday, Nov. 4 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d you must register by Friday. If you miss that opportunity, you can still vote during the one-stop voting cycle, which offers same-day registration and voting from Oct. 16 to Nov. 1.<\/p>\n<p>If you have questions or want to know if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re registered or where to vote, you can visit the Orange County Board of Elections website at www.co.orange.nc.us\/elect\/faqs.asp <\/p>\n<p>If you live in Chatham County, visit the board of elections site at www.chathamnc.org\/Index.aspx?page=110<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our rapt attention Around town Tuesday night, the crowds were a little bigger \u00e2\u20ac\u201d packed in at some places \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and a lot quieter than usual. At least they were quieter for about 90 minutes as the two candidates for the presidency squared off in Nashville for the second debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}