Ellie Kinnaird stresses experience, accomplishments

With six terms in the N.C. Senate and four terms as mayor of Carrboro behind her, it’s no surprise that Sen. Ellie Kinnaird spends much of her time at campaign appearances talking about what she’s done.

Kinnaird began a recent UNC forum appearance by noting that many in the room were taking advantage of one of her accomplishments – one stop early voting.

“That was my bill,” she said, noting she also helped implement a law requiring paper ballots be used throughout the state to ensure accurate vote counts.

But Kinnaird places the strongest emphasis on her successes in enacting environmental legislation.

“I’ve had a strong environmental history,” she said. “We’ve passed energy and water conservation for all new public buildings.”

Independent Weekly endorses incumbents

The Independent Weekly has released its endorsements in a number of local General Assembly races, and they’ve chosen Sen. Bob Atwater and Sen. Ellie Kinnaird.

However, the paper didn’t take the time to research the challengers. Instead, they are basing the endorsements off their knowledge of the incumbents’ records and a questionnaire they sent to candidates, which Roger Gerber answered minimally and Greg Bass didn’t answer at all. Given my experience talking to both challengers, they seem quite happy to provide their opinion on any issue and therefore the Indy appears to have done shoddy reporting. Not a good basis for endorsements, in my opinion.

The Money Trail: Incumbents raise up to $50,000

I decided to take a cue from my colleague’s blog about campaign finances and take a look at the finance reports the candidates have filed with the N.C. State Board of Elections.

As one might expect, the Republican challengers are working with much less money than the incumbents. Jon “Greg” Bass is not required to file finance reports because he plans to keep his contributions and expenditures under $3,000. Roger Gerber is reporting his finances, but so far he’s posted only one contribution- a donation of $707 from himself.

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.