You remember Bob Etheridge, the long time Democratic Congressman from North Carolina who made internet fame with this performance:
He was unseated by Renee Ellmers.
But he’s back, and he’s running for Governor of North Carolina (h/t @John Nolte):
In a statement Thursday, Etheridge said: “After considerable thought and a whole lot of encouragement, I am announcing today, my candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination for Governor.
“My life’s work has been about improving the public education system in North Carolina. As we move forward, we must ensure we are making the key investments in public education, community colleges and the university system.
“This election is about leadership. It’s about moving forward – not moving backward.
Hopefully the voters of North Carolina know who they are and will not let Etheridge back in the hen house.
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Henry Hawkins just parked the truck & is reciting Desiderata at this very moment.
lol….
Prof., you are WAY too kind.
It was not THAT alliterative.
Woooru…?
WooRu…!?!?!
Ew. Pass the Pepto. And the Johnny Walker.
Obviously Etheridge is still drunk if he thinks he’s going to be Governor of North Carolina.
You say that like ‘drunk’ is a bad thing.
Depressing. More evidence that shame is dead.
Bob Ethridge bio, sung by The Who:
I woke up in a Soho doorway
The policeman knew my name
He said, “You can go sleep at home tonight
If you can get up and walk away”
I staggered back to the underground
The breeze blew back my hair
I remembered throwing punches around
And preachin’ from my chair
Who are you
Who who who who…Who the ** are you?
The least he could do is buy blog ads, so we can click them in the sidebar and make you a few $$.
Ethridge is apparently the sacrificial lamb. The Dems know they can’t win, so Bowles has decided not to run. Anthony Fox, the Mayor of Charlotte also realizes he can’t win against Pat McCrory, former Charlotte Mayor.
McRory would have won last time, but for Obummer’s coattails and Acorn. Instead we got stuck with ‘Queen Bev’.
Hopefully the voters of North Carolina know who they are and will not let Etheridge back in the hen house.
Or at least at the public trough?
.
We (NC-ers) have been expecting this since Perdue announced she wouldn’t seek reelection. We wondered if it would be Heath Shuler, Brad Miller, et al. Etheridge is dead on arrival, a sacrificial offering by the DNC.
Former Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory (R) is sitting pretty. NC went GOP big time in 2010, turned the state congress over for the first time since…. seems like 1593. He’s essentially been running since losing to Perdue and Obama’s coattails in 2008. He’s very well funded, has a statewide organization already set up, and is expected to win handily. The Dems have a horrible reputation for corruption in NC, with multiple top level office holders gone to prison and/or indicted over the past 20 years, including a former speaker, Jim Black (D), and Ag director, among many others. Current Governor Perdue’s campaign staff is under indictment, and there is suspicion that Perdue’s decision not to run is because she’ll be indicted as well (as was the Dem governor she replaced, Mike Easley). Etheridge, it seems, is taking one for the Dem team here. The viral video the rest of the country saw was not an outlier. The guy is full-blown skank, a product of NC’s statewide educational bureaucracy and the NC teacher’s association (union).
As good as all that sounds for NC conservatives, there is some concern that McCrory may have rinoish tendencies. Yay. We’re waiting to see how he talks now that he’s officially in. Much of what he did in Charlotte says conservative, but some of it, not so much. Charlotte loved him.
NC will likely be 100% GOP with an even heavier conservative face in state congress come November. With all our military bases and the threats to slash the Pentagon budget, conservative candidates have a natural opening – unemployment here is high. With Perdue, it’s been a lot of veto/override battles with congress, but with a GOP governor, we’ll hopefully get this place rocking.
Your take on the fall presidential race in NC: if it’s Romney versus Obama, who gets NC? If it’s Newt versus Obama, who gets NC?
Why does everyone think that the Presidential candidate will affect a State election?
That’s another bullshit meme that the Republican elites are spewing.
A presidential candidate who is able to ‘excite’ the electorate tends to result in a higher turnout, especially of nominal voters (those not particularly ‘into’ politics like we are). A higher turnout generated by one candidate over his/her opponent tends to benefit the down ticket candidates of the same party affiliation. (i.e. voting straight party ticket)
Oh, I meant to add that the reverse effect is also true. An unexciting, uninspiring candidate tends to hurt down ticket candidates of the same party.
This is yet another reason why I think nominating Romney is a terrible idea. He does not excite or inspire the electorate… I honestly don’t think he has the ability to do so. It just isn’t part of his DNA.
I still say that if Romney is the nominee, turnout will be low and he will lose in the General and it has the potential to hurt down ticket candidates as well.
I think that effect will be mitigated a bit by a lack of zeal on the Democratic side as well, but it would be yet another missed opportunity by the GOP. If the GOP is able to offer up a candidate that can excite the electorate, they’ll more easily pick up down ticket seats. If the go with Romney, they may pick up some… but not what they could have.
You have the coolest handle…sorry LukeHandCool, you’ve been out-cooled 🙂
FWIW, and based on jobs being the top concern in a state with 10.5% unemployment, coupled with threatened defense budget cuts, I’d say that whoever convinces NC they will protet NC military bases will win. I believe that would be Gingrich. As for Romney, NC ain’t big on Yankee slickhairs unless they’re named Soprano. Romney would struggle against Obama in NC.
My advice to Gingrich: channel Jesse Helms (R) in rural NC and Sam Ervin (D) in Raleigh and Charlotte. (On today’s ideological scale, Ervin would be a moderate Republican).
This is CRITICAL: Avoid like the plague any endorsement by NC natives David Gergen, Charles Kuralt, Carl Kassel (NPR), Andy Griffith, and especially…. Clay Aiken.
Thanks for that. I keep seeing various polls that say the NC is ‘competitive’ for the fall and I keep wondering why. I would think (don’t know this) that with the recent announcements on down-sizing the Army, the continuing unemployment, etc, that Obama would have real trouble getting NC again unless he somehow conjures up a huge youth vote.
Our only large urban areas – Raleigh and Charlotte – are largely Democrat and pretty liberal at that. The Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill alley, including the Research Triangle Park, NCSU, UNC, Duke, is very Democrat, Charlotte too, though more in a corporate way. The GOP nom will have to do very well in the rural areas to overcome the Dem voting density of the two major metro areas. NC is primarily rural though. Raleigh & Charlotte combined population, including metro areas, is about 1.5 million, while the rest of NC holds another 8 million.
One wild card is the effect of the Dem convention in Charlotte on NC voters. Seems to me it won’t help them more than it hurts them, i.e., a wash.
I have family in North Carolina. They assure me that Bob is going nowhere.
Good news is, when he’s defeated in the primary it’s over for him. There’s no seat anywhere in the fall. He’ll be out of politics for good.
I would have thought that being put on the sick list by a nurse with no political experience would be enough for Congresscritter Etheridge.
I guess he hasn’t quite finished with rehabilitation. Someone get that man some Lomotil. He’s got the runs again.
Professor, I’m sorry that this is O/T, but this latest video from Newt2012 is, as we say in the South, a humdinger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wAkKl3Y8xmQ
I think that is his best one yet. Scathing!
You can always tell how much a man cars about “improving the public education system in North Carolina” by the way he physically assaults young college students serving as interns in our nation’s capital. Etheridge clearly cares a great deal.
Not even “Tar Heels” are dumb enough to buy that…
Voters of N. Carolina: “Who are you?”
Don’t forget to take your meds before any interviews, Bob
Campaign slogan? … “Tell me who you are or I’ll break your arm!”
Another Democratic thug. Sounds like NC voters are flushing most of these corrupt people out not letting them float to the top.
Maybe if we get a republican governor we can get photo id to vote. Voter fraud has been rampant here in NC. I moved up here in 2002 from Alabama and voted for the first time in the 2002 election. I pushed he “R” button on the computer voting machine, and when checking my vote I saw I had voted straight democrat. The machine wouldn’t let me go back to the first page to change this error. I had to get a poll worker to come and get me back there. This happened three times. The only way I could vote republican was to mark each individual slots. That means anyone who voted straight “R” on that machine probably had their vote changed. I didn’t do anything about it since the poll worker was aware of the problem. I felt this was why the dims stayed in power in NC. They fiddled with the voting machines with union workers repairing them. Later on, in thinking about this I called republican headquarters and reported it. They were totally uninterested and their whole attitude is “why are you wasteing my time”.I have been leary of computer voting machines ever since.
If the DNC thought they had a chance in NC, Erskine Bowles would run or would at least be highly pressured to run. He knows better. Heath Shuler has announced he won’t run again now that he’s been redistricted out of CD 18. He has no juice statewide, isn’t well known outside the NC Blue Ridge in the far west. Others reportedly ‘looking at’ a run are all no-names.
A football analogy in honor of this weekend’s Super Bowl:
For the DNC to run Bob Etheridge for governor of NC, it’s like they’ve signed Vinnie Testaverde for one year to be their starting QB, a tacit acknowledgement that this is a rebuilding year and they do not expect to win.