
{"id":746,"date":"2007-08-16T08:07:07","date_gmt":"2007-08-16T16:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/08\/16\/exile-on-jones-street-81607\/"},"modified":"2007-08-16T08:07:07","modified_gmt":"2007-08-16T16:07:07","slug":"exile-on-jones-street-81607","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/08\/16\/exile-on-jones-street-81607\/","title":{"rendered":"Exile on Jones Street: 8\/16\/07"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Is it that time already?<\/strong><br \/>\nI hope you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re ready, because the Southern primary season is right around the corner thanks to the South Carolina GOP\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recent bid to maintain its first-in-South status.<br \/>\nResponding to Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to change its primary date, Palmetto State Republicans moved their primary up to January 19. (That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s less than 160 days away, depending on when you read this.)<\/p>\n<p>That backs up the train, since Iowa insists on first place, New Hampshire follows closely and so on. As a result, the 2008 primary season is edging dangerously close to 2007.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Unlike their fellow South Carolinians, Democrats in S.C. say they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll keep their Jan. 29 primary date. That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be any less interesting though.<\/p>\n<p>The S.C. had been a bellwether for the now-defunct Super Tuesday for some time \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and the state rang the bell for Bill Clinton in 1992 when the soon-to-be president rolled over Tom Harkin, who had been campaigning with Jesse Jackson, and Paul Tsongas, who was considered Clinton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top challenger after Nebraska\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Sen. Bob Kerry dropped out following dismal numbers in Georgia.<\/p>\n<p>Clinton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decisive win there on the Saturday before the \u00e2\u20ac\u212292 Super Tuesday set him up for checkmate.<\/p>\n<p>Scene: A ballroom after a rally in Columbia; dejected Kerry staffers throwing back a few with the Clinton crowd and everyone swapping tales about dirty tricks courtesy of Lee Atwater.<\/p>\n<p>The Clintons have a solid set of connections in S.C., and not just former governor and Clinton-era Secretary of Education Dick Riley and friends. Hillary Clinton has worked the state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s historically African-American campuses since \u00e2\u20ac\u212292 and knows the political landscape.<\/p>\n<p>This makes South Carolina her chance to score big against John Edwards and Barack Obama early on in the South.<\/p>\n<p>Edwards, who has been concentrating mainly on Iowa for years now, needs a solid S.C. showing \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not just because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s his home state and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seen as the Southern candidate, but in order to prove that his anti-poverty message is going to get him votes in places outside of union strongholds.<\/p>\n<p>Obama has to prove that he can wrestle African-American support from the Clinton camp. If he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, then he faces hearing Brit Hume and Tucker Carlson question his blackness ad nauseam.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meanwhile, in N.C.<\/strong><br \/>\nThe primary for North Carolina remains May 7, proving once again what a civilized and humble bunch we are. But eagerness to delve into the races down ballot from the presidential primary has many a pundit scanning for early clues among the scraps of information available, especially the wide-open governor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s race.<\/p>\n<p>The latest campaign finance reports are doubling as tea leaves and show that State Treasurer Richard Moore has a slight edge over Lt. Governor Bev Perdue.<\/p>\n<p>Perdue has a mere $3.4 million on hand right now, while Moore has $3.7 million, according to the latest reports.<\/p>\n<p>That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still far more than either Fred Smith or Bill Graham (the wealthy lawyer from Salisbury, not the beloved preacher), who are spending away and only have $171,313 and $15,025, respectively, as of the latest reports.<\/p>\n<p>But the GOP candidates have skunked their Democratic counterparts in one category: money they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve loaned themselves for their campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>Smith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s report lists seven loans from himself for a total of $386,455.<\/p>\n<p>Graham, who is not the former host of Hour of Decision, wrote his campaign one check so far this year \u00e2\u20ac\u201d for $613,617.17.<\/p>\n<p>Musta really worked the spreadsheet to get it down to the last penny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is it that time already? I hope you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re ready, because the Southern primary season is right around the corner thanks to the South Carolina GOP\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recent bid to maintain its first-in-South status. Responding to Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to change its primary date, Palmetto State Republicans moved their primary up to January 19. (That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s less than 160&#8230;<\/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-746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746","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=746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}