Tag: north carolina

Breaking: Heath Shuler (D, NC) cuts and runs.

And it sounds like it’s not to run for Governor of North Carolina, either.  The relevant text:

This was not an easy decision. However, I am confident that it is the right decision. It is a decision I have weighed heavily over the past few months. I have always said family comes first, and I never intended to be a career politician. I am ready to refocus my priorities and spend more time at home with my wife Nikol and two young children.

Translation: redistricting had doomed Heath Shuler, anyway, and it’s a bad year to be a Democrat in North Carolina.  Just ask Bev Perdue.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Man, Charlotte’s going to be all kinds of fun during the Democrats’ convention this year, huh?  Whose idea was that, anyway?  Joe Biden’s?  It kind of feels like a Joe Biden kind of decision.

#rsrh Governor Bev Perdue (D, NC) CUTS AND RUNS.

That’s the word: no official confirmation yet, but expect a press conference at about 10:30 or so.

By the way, the sound that you are hearing is the sound of a thousand Democratic political operatives glumly scratching North Carolina off of their ‘in-play’ lists.  In 2008 Perdue eked out a 50/47 win over Pat McCrory (who is running again); since then, of course, her poll numbers have plummeted, the GOP has taken control of the state house, and the ludicrous redistricting of 2000 has been repaired by the new state legislature.  In short: Bev Perdue has presided over the wreck of the North Carolina Democratic party version of the Costa Concordia wreck, and now she wants to just get out and take a taxi home.

And she’ll be joined by NC-13’s Brad Miller, who is unsurprisingly admitting today what was already known: to wit, that the duly-elected state legislature has decided that Miller’s overstayed his welcome in Congress and needs to go home now.  As one of my colleagues has privately commented, the DNC at Charlotte is going to be a wake.

Moe Lane

PS: [UPDATE]: Ed Morrissey helpfully reminds us all that Bev Perdue wanted to cancel elections in 2010. Amazing what the Democrats think that they can get away with, isn’t it?

#rsrh My own take on the Bev Perdue Let’s-cancel-the-elections! thing

Background here: Governor Bev Perdue (D, NC) was talking specifically about cancelling 2012’s Congressional elections, but you get the feeling that cancelling, say, some gubernatorial ones would be a mitzvah in her eyes.  Anyway, my take?  Well, if I were a governor polling this badly for the last year and not really expecting things to change anytime soon then I might be inclined to endorse putting off as many elections as I could.

(pause)

No, wait, I wouldn’t, at that.  I’m a Republican.  We don’t do that sort of [expletive deleted].

2nd NC redistricting map more pointed than 1st one.

When the first North Carolina redistricting map came out at the beginning of July,  Democrats of course bawled like stuck calves.  Speaking objectively, this wasn’t a surprise: the way that it was set up, it put four Democratic Congressmen – Larry Kissell, Mike McIntyre, Brad Miller, & Heath Shuler – at a serious disadvantage in the 2012 elections.  Put simply, the map threatened to flip NC from 6/7 GOP/DEM to 8/5 GOP/DEM, or even 10/3. If you examine the previous map, you’ll understand why such a dramatic shift; the Democrats went notoriously overboard in gerrymandering in 2000, when they controlled the process.  In short, we had a humdinger of a karmic adjustment going on in North Carolina.

But then something interesting happened: Rep. GK Butterfield (D, NC-01) started complaining.  Rep. Butterfield is a beneficiary (along with Rep. Mel Watts of NC-12) of the racial gerrymandering system set up in response to the Voting Rights Act; and he made some rather pointed objections to the first map, arguing that it ‘disenfranchised’ some of his former constituents by moving them into majority-white districts.  North Carolinan Republicans thought about it – and must have decided that they agreed, because they went into the maps again and redrew both Butterfield’s and Watt’s districts to make them more in line with the VRA’s perceived guidelines.

Of course, that meant that they had to… make some unavoidable choices: Continue reading 2nd NC redistricting map more pointed than 1st one.

First North Carolina redistricting map!

And it firmly embraces the old folk saying: What goes around, comes around.

This is the first of three new maps (all of which will be coming out of the newly Republican-controlled state legislature):

To give you an idea of the shift (which is already forecasting DOOM for at least three North Carolina Democrats), here’s the old map:

Continue reading First North Carolina redistricting map!

Did Sen. McCaskill (MO) backstab Gov. Perdue (NC)?

(H/T: Say Anything) having St. Louis for the 2012 Democratic convention, on the rationale that having the convention in Missouri would be the equivalent of painting a big electoral target on her back for all those awful, awful Tea Partiers. Which is… interesting. First off, I’m pretty sure that Missouri Republicans – which had a decent-to-good run last year (cemented control of the state legislature, held off Caranhan in the Senate, kicked Ike Skelton to the curb) don’t really need the excuse of a national convention to focus their attention on Senator McCaskill.

Second, at last look Sen. McCaskill is looking at an average 43.2%/46% approval/disapproval rating right now… which is, well, awful.  But it’s still better than Gov. Perdue’s, which is currently at 36.6%/47.2%.  For that matter, North Carolina Republicans are cheerfully aware that all they need is a win in 2012 to take full control of the state government (they flipped control of the state legislature in 2010): so if McCaskill’s (alleged) argument that the DNC’s a lightning rod is correct, shouldn’t she have taken the hit for Team Jackass?  After all, Jay Nixon’s popular enough, and that’ll probably be a help for McCaskell next year…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

#rsrh Boat missed on DC Representation.

Timothy Carney lays it out: the idea was to increase the number of Congressional seats to 437 and trade creating a full Congressional seat for DC (effectively guaranteed Democratic) for an extra one for Utah (effectively guaranteed Republican, and Utah was next in line to get an extra seat because of the 2000 census). The deal never came together, but it was definitely an offer. Only now, because of the Census, Utah gets an extra seat anyway and the state that would next in line for an extra seat would be North Carolina.

North Carolina’s Congressional map is enough of a disaster area as it is already: the last thing that the legislature needs is more complications while it tries to fix the gerrymandering caused by a century of Democratic malfeasance. No deal.

#rsrh NC-11: Heath Shuler in deep [redacted].

Crude of me, but when SuSA informs an incumbent Democrat that his R+6 district is only giving him a 45/44 advantage over opponent Jeff Miller* among registered voters, crude is pretty much the proper response.  The poll isn’t up yet, but Jim Geraghty** has the details. Shuler’s underwater both generally and with independents; Miller’s not as well known, but apparently a lot of voters are fine with him not being Heath Shuler.

Which makes sense, really.  Still proud of that job-killing cap and trade bill you voted for, Heath?

Moe Lane

*And, if you check out the NRCC’s Big Board, you can get to Jeff’s website within seconds! Thanks, Big Board! [Or… not: link fixed. Well, how many Jeff Millers are going to run for Congress, anyway?] Continue reading #rsrh NC-11: Heath Shuler in deep [redacted].

Day Two of the Etheridge Incident.

I’m not particularly surprised that the Etheridge Incident is perturbing the Beltway. It has all the elements that one needs:

  • A genuine, newsworthy scenario (Congressman attacks cameraman);
  • An easily-accessible narrative (Congressman attacks cameraman);
  • A clear video record (note: two cameras, with footage spliced together);
  • A hint of scandal (Was the Congressman drinking?);
  • And a hint of conspiracy (Was the Congressman set up?).

Plus, of course, there’s the barely-veiled outrage that if the Congressman was set up then he was done so in a manner that Left-activists have been trying to do to Right-politicians since George Allen’s so-called ‘macaca’ moment.  Republicans have been dealing with this kind of game-playing for four years, now: which is another way of saying that we’ve had four years to learn how to do unto others as they have been enthusiastically doing unto us.
Continue reading Day Two of the Etheridge Incident.