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Monday: Good to be back
posted at 2008-02-04 23:18 | Last modified 2008-02-05 08:44
Well, sort of. Okay, mostly. For those of you who sent me good-natured ribbings about my vacation timing, I’d like to point out that between elections, the session, the Wright hearings, and the Capitolbeat conference here in November, the rest of the year is pretty well shot.
It was my first cruise, with my family, mostly to places between here and South America where they’ve had coups lately. (We affectionately refer to it as "The AK-47 Tour.") The fact that my parents were there made it great, regardless, but it was pretty nice anyway.
Cruise pros:
- The places you go, like Aruba (gorgeous), and the stuff you can do, like swimming with dolphins. (They’re bigger than you’d think. I have pics to prove it.)
- The very interesting people who work on the ship. The folks on ours spoke 60 different languages. I can’t imagine what the average night at the crew bar must sound like.
- Ridiculously complicated but excellent food.
Cruise cons:
- Being crammed into small spaces with the same loud, obnoxious people for days on end.
- Waiting in line for literally everything.
- Slow-as-molasses Internet access. Good thing the ship had CNN International.
- The bar tab. (Yikes.)
So what’d I miss? John Edwards dropped out, so did Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continued to kneecap each other, and so did Bev Perdue and Richard Moore. Shocking all round, no? But seriously, I am sorry to have missed the NAACP debate on the 26th. Dome had excellent coverage here.
D(elegate)-Day
Tomorrow is the High Holy Day of Primaries, Super-Duper- Tsunami-sized Tuesday. On the Dem side, 80% of the delegates needed for nomination are up for grabs. On the GOP side, it’s closer to 90%. Most nationwide polls put the Dems at a dead heat, with the GOP slightly more inclined toward a frontrunner (McCain). Stay tuned. I will.
Alas, it’s also Fat Tuesday. If you’re looking for beads and ballots, and you lean left, head out to Traction’s Super-Fat Tuesday party at the Fishmonger in Durham. If you lean right, sorry – I don’t know of any equivalent parties. If you do, let me know and I’ll put ‘em up here.
The Taxman cometh
One of the Legion (!) of Dome folks recently posted this tidbit on a 1.2 million dollar Raleigh real estate deal involving both GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bill Graham and his former campaign consultant (and former Raleigh Mayor) Tom Fetzer of Fetzer Stephens.
That’s interesting on its own merits, especially now that Graham and Fetzer have parted professional ways. But it gets even better. The property they co-own, 709 Hillsborough St., is Fetzer Stephens’s main office - and according to Wake County tax records, it’s been sent to collections for an unpaid July 2007 property tax bill of almost $7900.
Neither Fetzer nor Graham’s campaign responded to inquiries about the situation today. But according to a Wake County tax clerk, if one cosigner (Fetzer) doesn’t pay up, the other cosigner (Graham) has to. Sure, it’s a drop in the bucket to a well-heeled guy, but still.
Either way, if it isn’t paid within the next few days, both names will appear in newspaper tax arrears notices Feb. 15th. Not the kind of publicity two fiscally-responsible Republicans want.
Speaking of Republicans…
House 103 GOP challenger Alan Teitleman wrote in to protest my characterization of his attack on his current primary opponent and former boss, Rep. Jim Gulley. From his message to me:
First - a newspaper editor requested those photos. I sent them as a courtesy. If they make Jim look weak and frail, then that's his problem, not mine… This was the case of a reporter going off half cocked (in this case Jim Morrill), and everyone else just falling in line and not getting the facts. I have an email database of over 10,000 mostly in HD [House district] 103. I don't need to leak nasty photos to the press and hope that they would do [the] dirty work.
That’s not Char-O’s Jim Morrill’s account, and that’s not what I remember, either. But I’ve asked Teitleman to send along any communications from the Char-O as regards the photos.
Meantime, I stand by what I said earlier. As I see it, you can engage in negative tactics, or you can repudiate them, but you can't do both - although Teitleman is by no means the only or the highest-profile candidate who's apparently trying.
Comments? Drop me a line.
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