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Monday: Punctuated
posted at 2008-02-18 23:44 | Last modified 2008-02-18 23:45
Cumberland Dem Mary McAllister took some heat today from State Auditor Les Merritt for the role her partially-state-funded nonprofit, Operation Sickle Cell, may have played in her political campaigns.
McAllister attracted attention here and elsewhere for her six-figure salary as OSC director. She attracted even more scrutiny when OSC staffers refused to comply with official records requests from the State Auditor’s office last year.
The audit released today found McAllister's salary commensurate with her experience and the organization’s size, but it also found fault with her use of state-funded computers and personnel for political campaign work. You can see the whole audit plus OSC’s response here.
McAllister’s by no means the only politician using state resources for campaign purposes – it’s illegal, but hardly unusual. What drew attention to her case, as Greensboro’s Mark Binker explains, is that the cover-up is almost always worse than the original problem.
Ad, subtract
Over at Dome, Ryan Teague Beckwith reports both Dem candidates have scaled back on ad buys this month. Frankly, it makes sense that both campaigns would seek to preserve their bank balances in case national primaries flood the state's airwaves in May, raising stakes and prices.
Fair enough, then, if it weren’t for the fact that Perdue’s campaign lambasted Moore’s pullback last week as evidence his ads were ineffective. So does today’s news of a Perdue pullback mean we should draw the same conclusion about her ads? I’m just askin’ here…
Obama in NC
Score one for the WTVD folks who got a copter overhead to capture the warm embrace between Edwards and Obama in Chapel Hill Sunday morning. Does it mean much?
According to abundant but unconfirmed rumors, Obama has offered Edwards the AG nomination in return for his support. Personally, I think that sounds like a great match for Edwards’ strengths, not to mention a drop-dead bully pulpit/takeoff point for 2016.
But the 64K question still out there pertains to the second spot on the ticket. Would Obama offer it to Edwards? (I’d guess yes). Would Edwards take it? (I’d guess no).
Two-glass rule?
Buoyed by positive reviews of his campaign blog, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bob Orr admitted Sunday to some self-imposed rules to limit his blog’s potential political liability: Two glasses of wine, and no late nights.
Okay, the former sounds doable, most nights, anyway. But the latter…heck, I’m always posting late, and I’m not even running for anything. So good luck with that one, Bob. But for the record, I really do enjoy Orr’s blog, and he deserves a lot of credit for doing it himself - especially when there’re so many other things a candidate could be doing with his/her valuable time.
Just for fun:
The least-understood punctuation mark makes a comeback – and on the NYC subway, of all places. The NYT’s Sam Roberts has this tongue-in-cheek paean to the much-maligned semicolon.
Comments? Drop me a line.
