Rasmussen has released a poll today for North Carolina showing the state is still very much in play.

Rasmussen 7/17/08 (6/12 numbers in parenthesis)

McCain  45 (45)
Obama   42 (43)

Rasmussen also then asked those still undecided which way they leaned, with leaners the numbers are

McCain 48
Obama  45

It's more official than ever: the Tar Heel State is a legitimate battleground:

The race is still close between John McCain and Barack Obama in the traditionally red state of North Carolina. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds McCain ahead 45% to 42% in the Tar Heel State. When "leaners" are included, McCain leads 48% to 45%.

This represents a statistically insignificant change from last poll, which had McCain up 2 points (note: Bush won the state in 2004 56-44).  Some interesting cross-tabs show room for growth for Obama as well:

Having just returned from a roadtrip "home", I feel a need to share some observations between where I currently live, the suburbs of Research Triangle Park, NC, the city of Lansing, Michigan, where I grew up, and Myerstown, PA, where my sister currently lives.  Taken together, they make at least an interesting "slice" of America, if not a series of cautionary tales.

At one point, the GOP was bursting with enthusiasm about gaining back their long-lost and well-deserved House majority, and high on their target list for this goal were seats like North Carolina's Republican-leaning 11th District, now represented by freshman Democrat Heath Shuler.

Except that their candidate has now suspended his campaign.

Republican Congressional candidate Carl Mumpower has suspended his campaign to unseat incumbent Heath Shuler, saying he’ll eliminate about 80 percent of formal campaigning until at least half of the Republican leaders in the 15 counties in the 11th Congressional District commit to core party principles.

"I’m not going to be doing any fundraising or advertising—there won’t be any active campaigning for the Republican Party," Mumpower said this morning. "I’ll put things on hold until I get party officials to commit to the principles and to the process of holding elected officials accountable."

"Core party principles".

And let no man be so churlish as to assert that the real reason Mumpower dropped out was because he had a lofty $906.90 cash-on-hand. That's nine hundred and six dollars, ninety cents.

Another GOP recruiting debacle.

Race tracker wiki: NC-11

The urge to speak no ill of the dead is a powerful one.  And it was on full display this week as former Senator Jesse Helms was laid to rest.  

The media glossed over almost all of Helms' ugly history as the last unapologetically racist politician of the segregation era.  Largely ignored was how Helms stirred the pot of bigotry and hatred to win elections and further his political goals.  The people Helms hurt throughout his career deserve better.

More after the jump.

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Jacob saw his first real fireworks display and loved it at first. We were watching from the 12th floor of a building right on the waterfront, so it was spectacular. Unfortunately, he was coming down with a fever and by the end was pretty unhappy. He is fine again now.

This was a big week, both locally where my friend qualified for the ballot for NYC's Sept. 9th primary election, and nationally where Obama's surge continued even as the Democrats once again showed less spine than we would like them to. More below.

In the North Carolina and Oregon Democratic US Senate primaries this year, two great progressive candidates ran for the nomination: Jim Neal (NC) and Steve Novick (OR).  The DSCC, who is not supposed to pick sides in a primary, appears to have secretly funded their preferred candidates anyway (Kay Hagan (NC) and Jeff Merkley (OR)).

If the DSCC leaders personally had a preference, that’s fine.  BUT IT IS NOT OK TO FUNNEL MONEY TO ONE CANDIDATE OVER ANOTHER IN A DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY!!!!  That's unfairly taking sides and deliberately influencing an election, and that is not what the Democratic Party is about.

As someone who grew up in North Carolina during the 80's and 90's, it is hard to find words to convey the role has Jesse Helms played in my worldview. One of the first memories I have of Helms is being told that he had said "vulgar and common" things about my grandfather, Thad Stem, a poet who wrote liberal columns for the Raleigh News & Observer at the same time Helms was a political commentator on a Raleigh television station.

I've been fairly well appalled at the hagiography of Jesse Helms in the wake of his death.  The man was a racist and a homophobe.  

They're saying he was a "gentleman" - which is utterly wrong.  Would a gentleman have greeted Senator Carol Mosely-Braun (D-IL), the first black woman in the U.S. Senate, by entering the same elevator and literally whistling "Dixie" through the ride?

Which is why I'm so impressed with a man in North Carolina named L.F. Eason.  From the Raleigh News-Observer:

L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.

Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.

When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms. After several hours' delay, one of Eason's employees hung the flags at half-staff.

I work for a national nonprofit called Everyday Democracy, and we're busy these days. For more than 15 years, our organization - formerly known as the Study Circles Resource Center - has helped communities organize large-scale, inclusive dialogues about racism and then take action to create positive changes in the ways their communities address race. But this year is proving to be one of our most fruitful years ever, as news headlines (Barack Obama's success, the Jena 6, the Rev. Wright saga) and media events (like the recent PBS film Traces of the Trade) have more people than ever ready and willing to talk about race.

If this is an area of special interest to you, I invite you to check out our anti-racism resources at Everyday Democracy, as well as our DemocracySpace blog, which is becoming a hotbed of civil, nonpartisan discussion about issues of race. Read below the flip to learn about some recent thought-provoking posts, as well as an upcoming (July 23) online discussion of some subtle ways white privilege stands in the way of real racial progress in our country.

Jesse Helms’ death comes as no surprise, since his health had rapidly declined after he retired from the U.S. Senate in 2002. Yet it’s fitting that he died on the Fourth of July.

Helms was a disgrace to North Carolina and the nation, and what better time to celebrate our independence from the bigoted, hate-filled politics he stood for.

During Helms’ heyday, the question on many people’s minds about North Carolina was how could its citizens keep re-electing an extreme right wing, unrepentant segregationist, self-proclaimed "redneck" like Helms? The perception was that the state was filled with racists, or that Helms’ voters were ignorant and uneducated. The reality is more complex.

More below the fold.

Boots on the Ground, Balloons in the Air, Up in the Polls!

Someone WORKING...for a CHANGE is so much more than a campaign slogan for this working man running for Congress to finally represent the interests of the people. It's the very work ethic that permeates our campaign for North Carolina's 8th District and shows in our dedicated army of volunteers and recent polling.

JOIN US!

The time is now.

(cross-posted at BlueNC)

Recently, I started wondering how to handle redrawing North Carolina's congressional districts.  After all, this state is turning bluer by the minute, and we've got one (and perhaps two) relatively new Dem congressmen to protect.  Something else to consider--two of our districts look VERY vulnerable to Repub takeover once the current incuments retire.  So here's my idea for redistricting North Carolina in a few years ... feel free to quibble.

The 2008 gubernatorial races were never meant to be the cycle's most suspenseful contests, but my March ratings found that the top four races had gotten unexpectedly more competitive, with three making their way to the toss-up rating. Yet, things have quieted down over the past few months. For one, heated Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina were resolved and it will take some time before the general election in these states reaches full speed. Meanwhile, Missouri's Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon is expanding his lead over his two potential opponents in what is looking like it could be a runaway race.

Originally posted on Campaign Diaries.

    I could probably not be called a big fan of Jesse Helms, having driven all the way across the country in 1990 to volunteer for his Democratic opponent Harvey Gantt in the North Carolina U.S. senatorial race that year. The infamous "hands ad", with white hands crumpling a paper because "racial quotas" gave the job to someone else, I saw on a TV in North Carolina during that campaign: and it was unpleasant, believe me.
    And he was not an especially gallant opponent, unlike, say, William F. Buckley, Jr.; although I have joked before that a Jesse Jackson/Jesse Helms ticket would be the ultimate in balance and diversity, Helms' bigotry in racial and sexual orientation matters, among other things, does not cut a very fine record. We know this.

    Still, he didn't have horns. He adopted a lonely child with cerebral palsy. He worked with Bono on international debt relief, and after meeting Bono apologized for his meanness about AIDS.

It is difficult to feel good this 4th of July given the mess the Bush/McCain Republicans have led this nation into. This year alone 438,000 people who lost their jobs. We are well into the Bush's SECOND recession (first president ever to preside over two recessions) with almost no recovery between them. We are officially in a bear market. Food prices are rising worldwide. Oil is at record highs suggesting Americans will have a very, very tough winter. The deficit is WAY above where it has ever been before and no end in sight. And I am not even going into the inept, idiotic and completely useless Bush/McCain Iraq war.

I don't like the conclusion of this Charlotte Observer analysis but it appears to have good logic.   I'm posting it because it shows what needs to be worked on before November if Obama, Kay Hagan (Senate), Harry Taylor (House) and Larry Kissell (House) are going to win.

I have possible action items to counter the analysis at the end of the diary.

Over at BlueNC (hat tip to The Southern Dem), we've been having a real hoot over Robin Hayes (R-NC08)' claim three years ago this week that Saddam was in cahoots with al-Qaeda on 9/11.

When Hayes was told the 9/11 commission found no evidence that Saddam was at all involved, Hayes responded in typical BushBot fashion:

Told no investigation had ever found evidence to link Saddam and 9/11, Hayes responded, "I'm sorry, but you must have looked in the wrong places."

Hayes, the vice chairman of the House subcommittee on terrorism, said legislators have access to evidence others do not.

Think we're kidding?  Crooks and Liars has video (digg it up).