North Carolina's population has nearly doubled since 1970, fueled by an economic expansion that brought an influx of Midwesterners, Northeasterners and nonwhites and turning the state from a Republican presidential stronghold into a battleground.
Among the new residents: Carol Fentiman, 66, a Chicago native who retired with her husband to the western Carolina mountains seven years ago from California and is a Democratic Party volunteer. And Piper Phillips, 18, a college student who moved here a year ago from Ohio and who will cast her first presidential ballot this year for Barack Obama.
To explain their upcoming votes, both cited women's health care and abortion rights, civil rights for gay Americans and equal pay for women.
"I'd like to be considered an equal citizen in this country," Fentiman said.
The oppressed Carol Fentiman, fighting to destroy the very things that made North Carolina great...
What did Romney say in his 47% remarks? Ah, yes: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it -- that that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. ...
Carol is the poster child (brrrr) for the 47%. Always said Mitt should embrace that remark, because, like most so-called "gaffes", they are simply inconvenient truths.
Not until you get to paragraph 21 of 21 in this story do you find a caveat:
Guillory, the UNC expert, said that means North Carolina elections, including Obama vs. Romney "will turn even more on the ground game, on getting your loyalists to the polls."
Really? You don't say? Then perhaps a lot of time and effort was wasted writing this article, because, as Ms. Elizabeth Price Foley points out:
REPUBLICANS DOMINATE EARLY VOTING IN NORTH CAROLINA: Some 25,000 North Carolinians have already cast early ballots in their swing state. Of those voting, the state reports that 13,459 were Republicans, 7,130 were Democrats and 4,630 were unaffiliated. The pace of early voting is substantially higher than in 2008.
Looks like the AP will be depressed, and Carol Feintiman will remain "oppressed", for at least the next four years.
I pity them both.
AP also fails to mention the entire North Carolina Democratic-controlled legislature was swept out of office in 2010.
ReplyDeleteBetween stories like this, and the polling samples taken, it seems as if the emdia has erased all history between 2009 (Chris Christie, Virginia) and the present. It is election eve 2008 all over again, with Romney supplanting McCain as the evil Republican racist trying to halt "progress".
Un-fucking-real.
Not impressive, after all, no less "dominant":
ReplyDeleteAt this same point in 2008, there were 16,560 ballots returned in North Carolina. Of those, 9,513 were by Republicans, 4,568 by Democrats and 2,472 by unaffiliated voters.
Republicans led by a smimlar percetage in 08 and still lost the state. THat being said, the unaffilaited turnout, should it break for the challenger, may male the difference here.