Document Actions
Wed. early: Wow.
posted at 2008-11-05 09:03 | Last modified 2008-11-05 15:40
(Or is it Tuesday late? Must. Sleep. Soon.)
Wow.
I was at the Democratic HQ last night in Raleigh. You could’ve run a city off the energy in that room. I’ve covered a lot of campaigns, winners and losers, but this is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to an irresistible political force.
One of the drawbacks of radio is no pictures. So in lieu of, here’re some of my favorite images from last night:
- An entire family – grandma to grandkids – decked out in matching T-shirts. (They all canvassed for Obama, too.)
- A group of seven white suburban hockey moms dressed in blue, toting a sign (on a hockey stick, natch) that read "Hockey Moms for Obama." One told me her nine-year-old son Ian had held a bake sale for Obama at his school.
- Two "Red Hat" ladies, one white, one black, shuffling around the Marriott lobby in their purple outfits. One was wearing glasses framed in blinking red lights.
- Attorney General Roy “Dignified” Cooper whooping like a teenager when CNN called Ohio for Obama.
- And my favorite, a little old lady named Maurice. She was 80, tiny, black, bundled up in a coat and beret, ensconced on the couch in the Marriott’s cavernous lobby. She watched the returns on a bank of flatscreen TVs while she told me about the days when Fayetteville St., outside the door, had “colored” drinking fountains. She had tears in her eyes.
Eating Crow
Okay, so I was one for three. Or maybe one and a half. Good thing the bets were small, right?
Dem US Senate candidate Kay Hagan cleaned R incumbent Liddy Dole's clock by a healthy margin of 53-44. Jessica Jones had this wrap-up.
Listen Now!
McCrory did not win by a hair as I predicted. Instead, Bev Perdue pulled it out by three points, 50-47. It’s a squeaker compared to recent gubernatorial races, but a win's a win, regardless. Here's my story on it.
Listen Now!
And for now, we still don’t know who won NC's presidential race. As of 8 am, Obama had an 11K lead (that’s out of 4.2 million, mind you) over John McCain, but provisional ballots haven’t been tallied yet. My editor was counting his blessings. “If it [the national race] had been close,” he said with a visible shudder, “we’d have been the next Florida.”
Leoneda Inge had a story this morning on local African-American reax. That's here.
State House and Senate
Neither chamber saw much of a shift, though it’s safe to say several Dems who’d been targeted probably owe Obama handwritten thank-you notes.
Senate Dems lost one seat: Dalton’s seat flipped to R for former Rep. Debbie Clary. Dems Hoyle, Soles, and Boseman survived tough challenges. Janet Cowell’s and Kay Hagan’s open seats stayed D. John Kerr’s seat stayed D, too, disappointing former GOP Rep Louis Pate, while Fred Smith’s seat stayed R.
In the House, nothing changed. The Rs held onto 9 open seats (a remarkable feat this year), but Bill Daughtridge’s and Charles Thomas’s seats went D.
The Ds held onto two open seats (Mary McAllister’s and Drew Saunders’s), and picked up two R seats (Daughtridge’s and Thomas’s), but two incumbents -- Walt Church and Jim Harrell -- lost to R challengers.
More later, after I get some sleep.
Comments? Drop me a line.
