Elections 2004

Vote your heart!

I have been posting on OP so much lately that y'all probably couldn't care less what I think at this point, but that never stopped me before (and doesn't usually stop y'all either):

Wayne Goodwin (D) is running for Secretary of Labor. I have known Wayne for a long time and he is a good guy. Sec. of Labor is a highly technical role that requires a lot of knowledge about the state and federal workplace safety regulations. Wayne is an attorney with experience in this field and will be a good Secretary of Labor. He is on-record as supporting making connections between NC's Labor Dept. and the Community College system in order to improve workplace safety and develop NC's economy at the same time.

Richard Moore (D) is running for re-election as State Treasurer. I have not known him as long, but I know that Richard Moore has done more good work as the Treasurer of NC than anyone ever before. In fact, this has traditionally been a fairly perfunctory office that wielded essentially no power at all. Richard has used his time in office to leverage improved accounting standards on Wall Street by working with other state retirement programs. Essentially they are using state retirement funds to threaten a boycott against shady corporations and mutual funds that do not adopt higher accounting standards. Richard has also been exploring whether as State Treasurer he can direct state investment into promoting homeownership while yielding strong safe returns on investment for the people of North Carolina. It's not too sexy, but for an office that never did anything of any note before, I think this stuff is pretty exciting. Richard Moore deserves some real credit for his work.

Roy Cooper (D) also deserves mention for his work on stamping out the scourge of payday lending in North Carolina (see the OP.org thread on this subject). While I don't know Cooper personally, I have seen the work he is doing. As Attorney General he created a Consumer Protection division to fight fraud artists who pray on senior citizens and natural disaster victims (among others). He also staffed it with some of the brightest attorneys in North Carolina. The Death Penalty Moratorium crowd is not so pleased with Attorney General Cooper, I should note, but, I mean, he is the Attorney General after all . . .

I tried to post this as a 'trackback' last week but it didn't work so good. Here are my endorsements in full:

POTUS & VPOTUS
John Kerry & John Edwards

Straight party ticket choice: Democrat
(I don't usually do the straight ticket, but it's actually how I would vote this year anyway.)

N. C. Supreme Court, Associate Justice, seat 1
Sarah Parker

N. C. Supreme Court, Associate Justice, seat 2
James A. Wynn, Jr. (Manning is a close second)

N. C. Court of Appeals Judges
Linda McGee
Wanda G. Bryant
Alan Thornburg

N. C. District Court Judges, district 15-B
Charles Anderson
Alonzo Coleman
Pat Devine

Soil & Water Conservation District Supervisor
Roger Tate

N. C. Constitutional Amendments
1: no
2: yes
3: yes

A reminder: this thread has special rules. You comments may only contain your personal endorsements, you may not mention any candidate who you do not personally endorse. No trash talking on this thread, please. Thanks for your cooperation.

I am moving all non-endorsement comments to the Open Election Thread. Please continue the conversations there.

I want to second Mark's comment about Roy Cooper. I think the race between Cooper and Knott is a "devil you know" moment. I am an opponent of the death penalty, and he's been the guy on the other side for the last four years, but if you think that a conservative Republican evangelical like Knott is going to be less zealous in his prosecution (or re-prosecution, as in the Gell case) of death penalty cases, I think you're high.

The Indy's endorsement of Knott, especially the paper's limp argument in favor of Knott, is triumphantly asinine. (Indy: We hope he's not_too_ evangelical or conservative, and we're willing to overlook his likely positions on church-state separation and parental notification issues so long as he's not Roy Cooper, because we think Roy Cooper is on television too much. We hope Knott will change the "climate" of the office, although we have no idea what that climate might become.)

For governor, I endorse voting for the Libertarian candidate or writing in somebody. Neither of the major party candidates cares about much more than promoting big business. The governor's race is different from voting for a legislator because the governor doesn't become part of a potential legislative voting bloc. This is why someone could make the argument that you should hold your nose as tight as you possibly can and vote for Erskine Bowles, but needn't put yourself through the humiliation of casting a vote for Easley.

I am voting mostly democrat but will not vote a straight ticket. Why? Because if you vote a straight democrat, you vote both BOCC candidates, and I only support Val Foushee.

Barbara Howe for Gov! She is the only candidate for Governor who is against the death penalty and against the war.