Very little media attention has been paid to the state senate races in our area this year. Many incumbents in the N.C. Senate are running unopposed, though here in the Triangle area, Republicans are challenging longtime incumbents like Ellie Kinnaird and Bob Atwater. Still, these candidates don’t appear to have nearly the amount of funding that the incumbents’ campaigns enjoy, judging from their fairly minimal Web presence (District 18 candidate Roger Gerber’s Web site only contains his position on a couple issues, while Jon “Greg” Bass in District 23 has no Web site at all).
Much of this has to do with the redistricting that has occurred over the years, which many say was designed to keep incumbents and their party in office. The Asheville Citizen-Times did an interesting analysis of the issue back in 2006 and Gerber laments the structure of state politics on his Web site. The district he hopes to represent combines rural Chatham and Lee counties with the very urban southwest corner of Durham county.
My hope is to give the Republican challengers an opportunity to be heard while giving equal time for the incumbents to discuss their accomplishments in office and what’s on their agenda if reelected. I also plan to provide my own analysis in comparing and contrasting the candidates as well. While local news organizations might not see these races as competitive enough to warrant heavy coverage, I feel strongly that voters should base their decision not solely on political party or incumbency, but also on a deeper knowledge of each of the candidates.
