Final week brings endorsements, publicity

The Daily Tar Heel has also made an endorsement in the District 23 race, joining the Independent Weekly in supporting Sen. Ellie Kinnaird’s campaign for reelection.

But like the Independent, the DTH hasn’t done much research into Bass’s candidacy. Standard practice for newspapers is to obtain questionnaire answers or an in-person interview with both candidates before offering an endorsement, and given that Bass is mentioned in about two sentences, it seems as if they didn’t do that. They claim he’s an inactive candidate, which is not true as he has campaigned extensively (albeit without funds for much advertising), including several appearances at forums with his opponent. Also, I’m unable to link to the story because for some reason, it’s not available in the paper’s online edition. You can find it on the last page of the October 29 PDF print edition, however.

Speaking of information about Bass, check out the Roxboro Herald-Courier’s profile of his campaign.

Bass, Kinnaird discuss myriad issues at forum

Sen. Ellie Kinnaird squared off with challenger Greg Bass at a forum at UNC’s Campus Y on Monday, discussing a wide variety of issues with a handful of students in attendance. The forum was sponsored by the Public Policy Majors Union and the Roosevelt Institute.

This Daily Tar Heel article covers most of the highlights, though I can’t help but point out an error in the story. The article states that Kinnaird walked to the forum from her home. I walked with her to her car as I interviewed her, so that’s not true and I’m not sure how the DTH writer got it.

Another interesting moment at the forum was when Bass picked up on the theme of change that has been so prevalent this election season.

“We need to change things,” he said. “The Democrats have been in charge for the last eight years. It’s got nothing to do with Bush.”

Click here for a podcast of the forum. Pardon the low audio quality; the candidates were not miked but everything can still be heard over the background static.

District 23 Forum today

I just learned that several student organizations at UNC are hosting a forum with Sen. Ellie Kinnaird and Greg Bass. Here are the details if you want to attend.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2008
What: *N.C. State Senate Forum
*Time: 5:15 pm
Location: Anne Queen Lounge, Campus Y, UNC Campus
Participants: Senator Ellie Kinnaird (D), incumbent Greg Bass (R), challenger

I’m hoping to record a podcast of the event, so check back for that.

Why blog about the senate races?

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.