Robert Poitras, representing the West-End business community announce this evening at the Downtown Partnership forum that the West End business community plans to field a “business candidate” for Council in 2007.
Interesting.
Has election 2007 already begun?

Made a quick 18 mile cycle through the major municipal precincts, along major roads, ramps and intersections last night to pick up some signs for a few candidates plus my Honest Abe NO on the referendum.

Baddour’s supporters, considering the incredible number of his signs, seemed to have done an excellent first pass.

This time last year I was catching 14 winks in preparation for election day.
Earlier in the evening I had made the rounds collecting my outlying signs for redeployment. About 3 hours from now, I was leaping out of bed to fill some balloons, say a hasty goodbye to the family and rush […]

Maintaining election signs feels like an art form.
During the 2005 election season, I plotted various energy saving routes to “care and feed” for my signs as I drove around town on regular errands. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.
I didn’t just fix my own signs. Heck, at […]

A resounding NO from former Orange County Democratic Party chair Barry Katz in his Oct. 28th LTE to the Chapel Hill News:

I will vote no on the ballot referendum to restructure the Orange County commissioners.
First, there hasn’t been enough public debate on the merits of change, and I oppose change without voters’ understanding its consequences. […]

Thank you Orange County League of Women Voters for sponsoring tonight’s forum.
There were 15-20 folks in the audience this evening, including former BOCC candidate Artie Franklin, current BOCC candidate Jamie Daniel and Superior Court District 15B candidate Chuck Anderson.

Fright-night, referendum style, came a day late as Moses Carey pretty much reprized his earlier “debate” performance […]

From todays New & Record (11/01/06):

An independent political organization called FairJudges.Net began airing the ad this week. By promoting four Supreme Court candidates, it upsets a system meant to create a level playing field in judicial contests. Watchdog groups are up in arms.
“Democracy North Carolina believes the activities of FairJudges.Net are a disturbing and unhealthy […]

Nice and quick response from Judge Calabria:

Mr. Raymond,
I will look into this as soon as I finish sending a letter to the State
Board of Elections about the violations that are occurring on TV. I have
already requested rescue funds. I will be happy to provide a copy of my
new letter to you after I send […]

According to WCHL1360 some kind of organized tomfoolery is going on at the Morehead Planetarium polling place

Some students from UNC Chapel Hill are working to get votes for Conservative judges, but are not always transparent in their efforts.
Chapel Hill attorney Bob Epting says a young woman approached him outside the polling place and asked […]

WCHL1360 caught a small taste [MP3] of Wednesday’s “debate”.
I’ve since heard the radio ad promoting,to some small extent (and, hopefully, unintentionally), the referendum. Besides surmounting all the advertising - radio, print - the layout of the ballot will probably prove to be the hardest obstacle to overcome. As someone (thanks) pointed out to […]

More on this issue later.
Here’s the text of my Oct. 19th WCHL1360 commentary:

This week, I am asking candidates for this years Superior Court and Board of Commissioner races to voluntarily report their campaign finances by Wednesday, October 24th.
The last we heard about campaign fund-raising was June 30th.
At that time we discovered […]