Carolina Politics Online

A follow-up to yesterday’s post regarding Sen. Walter Dalton’s rather lavish budget requests-

Jerry Meek says a Republican attack on Sen. Walter Dalton is off-base.

The state Democratic Party chairman told Dome that a criticism from the state Republican chairwoman about the candidate for lieutenant governor’s requested $277 million in state appropriations this year misses the benefits the bills would bring.

“If you look at the appropriations that Senator Dalton has proposed, you’ll see programs that help families protect their homes from foreclosures, help bring jobs and infrastructure to rural North Carolina, improve education and invest in programs that help the developmentally disabled,” he said.

The N&O

Wow. The Democrat Party Chairman is defending the Democrat Lt. Governor candidate. That’s a shocker.

As I said yesterday, precious few of these spending requests actually fall under what should be the government’s purview. If he really cared about N.C., he’d lower taxes and let individuals spend more of their money the way they want. But then he wouldn’t be able to show up at some ribbon cutting and pat himself on the back, would he? Sen. Dalton is simply using your tax money to get himself elected.

Since Sen. Dalton is all about “investing” our money to help N.C., may I offer a similar proposal? If any of you care about investing some of your own money in another program to help North Carolina, may I suggest a donation to the Pittenger for Lt. Governor campaign, and let’s kick this profligate Dalton out of office.

Sen. Walter Dalton is seeking more than $277 million in state spending.

The Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor has sponsored nine bills and co-sponsored 18 bills seeking appropriations in the upcoming state budget. A longtime state senator, he is serving an advisory role on the budget in the short session.

The N&O

What the hell could you possibly spend $277 million dollars on???

Dalton is the primary sponsor on bills totaling $208 million: $135 million for grants for local water and sewer projects, $20 million for the N.C. Rural Economic Development Center, $16 million for stem cell research, $14 million for the Cleveland Correctional Center, $10 million to provide services for the developmentally disabled, $5.8 million to help provide high-speed Internet access, $3 million for biotechnology training, $2.5 million for construction at historically black colleges and $2 million for small business entrepeneurship initiatives.

Among the larger appropriations bills he is cosponsoring: $44.7 million for Smart Start early childhood intiatives, $9.5 million for 4-H camps, $3 million for home foreclosure prevention, $3 million for loans for biotechnology start-ups, $1.6 million for a dropout prevention program in Durham and Vance counties, $1.4 million for water resource management and $1.25 million for biotechnology education.

It’s so easy to spend money when it belongs to someone else, isn’t it? This sort of waste is so God-awful disgraceful, it ought to disqualify Dalton from running for Lt. Governor of Drunken Sailor-Land, let alone North Carolina. Maybe, maybe, there are some legitimate government expenditures in there, like the $2.5 million for construction at historically black colleges (if they’re state schools). But how many of these projects can be accomplished through the private sector or personal initiative- especially if we had to pay fewer state taxes?

Here’s the scoop on Dalton’s opponent, State Senator Robert Pittenger-

Former Sen. Robert Pittenger sought $1.9 million in state spending.

The Republican nominee for lieutenant governor cosponsored three bills seeking appropriations in the upcoming state budget before resigning his seat.

Pittenger sought $1.5 million for three pilot career and technical high schools, $385,000 for Kids Voting and $100,000 for a study of the effectiveness of the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.

The N&O

State Senator Robert Pittenger has resigned his Senate seat this afternoon so that he can concentrate on his  campaign for Lieutenant Governor.  Pittenger will be facing State Senator Walter Dalton, the Democratic nominee, for the office in November.  The Republican Party will choose a replacement to finish out Pittenger’s Senate term.  That is likely to be Bob Rucho who won the Republican primary a few weeks ago to succeed Pittenger in January.

News&Observer

The Democrats have decided to drop the ball on immigration and stick their heads in the sand.

“You talk about all the state issues as much as you want but the root of the problem is at the federal level,” Sen. Walter Dalton, D-Rutherford, said. “The federal government’s going to have to step up and do something to address the issue.”

Senator Robert Pittenger is trying to do something about illegal aliens and their costs to North Carolina.

“The legislative leadership here, the Democratic leadership, has not allowed this bill to get out of committee and they certainly won’t allow any debate on the floor about it,” Sen. Pittenger added.

The News&Observer further adds.

Democrats believe new laws, such as new driver’s license laws and giving sheriff’s offices more authority to check for immigration status, are having success. Republicans argue it’s not enough.

I believe that North Carolina needs to stop being a sanctuary state and step up to the plate. North Carolinians need to stop electing “If i do not see it, it doesn’t exist” Democrats.

Canton Mayor Pat Smathers issued a strong statement today in support of former opponent Walter Dalton, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor.

“I hope you will join me in supporting Walter Dalton for lieutenant governor,” Smathers said in an e-mail to supporters. “I enjoyed getting to know Walter during this campaign, and believe he will do a great job for our state. Walter cares deeply about strengthening our schools, creating jobs in our rural communities and helping North Carolinians weather the foreclosure crisis.”

Other rivals Dan Besse and Hampton Dellinger also sent out e-mails saying they would stand behind the Rutherfordton senator.

Capital Letters

I predicted at the beginning of this race that Walter Dalton would win. He was the only candidate of the four who had broad appeal around the state and across party lines. He is a centrist and North Carolina has a center right populace. The other three candidates were too far to the left to effectively represent the state and the moderate Democrats that make up a large portion of the state party.

10:19PM - All the big races have pretty much been called except the Democratic Lt. Governor’s race, but it looks like Walter Dalton is going to take that one. I’m heading to bed. Congrats to all the winners tonight!

10:09PM - Fred Smith has conceded the GOP Gubernatorial Primary to Pat McCrory.

10:02PM - With 75% of the vote in Carter and Hamby are tied 50-50 in the Democratic Primary for NC-05. With 60% of the vote in Bratton has a gigantic lead in the Democratic Primary for NC-06 with 60% of the vote and is likely to win that one. Johnson is leading Ivester 60-40 in the Dem Primary for NC-10. In the Democratic primary for NC-03 Weber is stomping Adame 70-30.

9:47PM - Democratic Labor Commissioner Primary

With 29 of 100 counties reporting:

• Mary Fant Dannon - 28%
• John Brooks - 25%
• Robin Anderson - 24%
• Ty Richardson - 23%

9:45PM - Democratic Lt. Governor Primary

With 26 of 100 counties reporting:

• Walter Dalton - 44%
• Hampton Dellinger - 35%
• Pat Smathers - 14%
• Dan Besse - 7%

9:42PM - Republican Gubernatorial Primary

With 26 of 100 counties reporting:

• McCrory - 46%
• Smith - 37%
• Graham - 9%
• Orr - 7%

9:39PM - Nick Mackey is leading Drew Saunders 54%-46%.

9:12PM - Walter Jones is leading Joe McLaughlin 62% to 38%.

8:59PM - Kay Hagan has officially won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate race.

8:52PM - Mumpower is leading the race for NC-11. Armor is getting crushed. McCrory still has a slight lead state wide but Smith is not far behind. Dalton maintains a slight lead over Dellinger.

8:32PM - I am calling Bev Perdue as the winner of the Democratic Gubernatorial Primary. She is leading handily in all the largest counties in the state.

8:23PM - Kay Hagan is going to win the Democratic Senate Primary and it’s looking fairly certain that Beth Wood is going to win the Dem nomination for State Auditor.

8:14PM - Congressman Brad Miller has clearly won his primary challenge. Dalton and Dellinger are duking it out pretty close in the Dem side of the Lt. Gov race. Pittenger is clearly going to win the Republican nomination for that seat. Congressman McHenry is leading challenger Lance Sigmon 61 to 39.

8:05PM - Jim Neal is getting smoked by Kay Hagan in all the big counties, Mecklenburg, Wake, Durham. Bev Perdue is also leading Richard Moore. McCrory is in the lead in these counties as well and is getting over 70% of the vote in Mecklenburg.

As we all know the North Carolina primary is coming up on Tuesday and there are lots of races across the state for voters to decide. I am going to weigh in on a few here. Note, I am giving my opinion on who I think will win, not necessarily who I think is the best candidate or would like to see win.

I have already given my opinion on how I think the 11th Congressional Republican Primary will turn out.

In the Lieutenant Governor’s race there are primaries on both sides of the aisle. The Republican race is easy to call. Robert Pittenger has it locked up, end of story. The Democratic race is going to be a little more tight, but I think Walter Dalton is going to prevail by about 7 points, with Dellinger finishing second.

There are primaries on both sides in the 10th Congressional District as well. On the Democratic side I believe that Daniel Johnson will prevail over Ivester quite handily. On the GOP side, I think McHenry will win by a large margin. I think Sigmon’s ad about the Iraq attack after McHenry ran his video was a bit much for people to swallow and may have backfired on him. I think people viewed it as a cheap and dirty shot. I guess we’ll see on Tuesday. McHenry’s internals show him winning in a landslide. I don’t foresee as bad of a bloodbath as McHenry says it will be, but it won’t be a close race.

The Third Congressional District is going to be closer than people think, in my opinion. I predict that Walter Jones will triumph in the end, but not by a landslide margin. I think most Republicans in the district hold him in decent to high regards. I don’t feel that McLaughlin hitting Jones on his reversal of the war is a winning issue. The majority of Americans have grown tired of Iraq and that includes Republicans. Despite the high proportion of military families in the district, I don’t see Jones in much danger. People are also assuming that military families are automatically dedicated to the continued job in Iraq and that’s not a horse I would bet my money on.

In the U.S. Senate race Kay Hagan is going to trounce Jim Neal. That’s all I have to say about that.

Regarding the Presidential race, Barack Obama is going to win, but I don’t think he’ll break a ten point spread against Clinton. She has been gaining ground on him due to two things: her win in Pennsylvania and the continued media focus on Jeremiah Wright.

And now for the big one, the gubernatorial race. Bev Perdue wins the Democratic nomination hands down. Throughout the campaign she has generally lead Richard Moore, but there have been a few times that he has caught up with her in the polls. However, I think his sleazy attack ad about her husband selling Confederate memorabilia in his stores hasn’t played well with the public and it’s going to cost any chance he may have had.

On the Republican side, this is going to be close. While it’s technically a four man race, only Fred Smith and Pat McCrory are viable contenders on Tuesday. I think McCrory is going to pull this out, but not by much. It may not be enough for him to avoid a runoff and if that’s the case I think the following runoff election will favor Smith.

So there you have it. Tuesday awaits!

ASHEVILLE – More than 50 Democratic sheriffs in North Carolina announced their support Wednesday for state Sen. Walter Dalton in his campaign for lieutenant governor.

Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan was among those who endorsed the fellow Democrat from Rutherford County, praising Dalton’s efforts to pass the Meth Lab Prevention Act and his introduction of legislation that would ban sex offenders from social networking Web sites.

“I am very happy to support Senator Dalton. His introduction of legislation to help with sexual predators and also methamphetamine has definitely helped our job,” said Duncan.

Asheville Citizen-Times

State Sen. Walter Dalton plans to appear in Asheville Wednesday with Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan and Rutherford County Sheriff Jack Connor to promote his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor.

Dalton’s campaign said he plans to announce endorsements of more than 50 North Carolina sheriffs at the event at 11:30 a.m. at the Buncombe County Courthouse. The press conference follows a three-day meeting of the N.C. Sheriff’s Association in Asheville.

Asheville Citizen-Times

The N.C. Lieutenant Gubernatorial Candidates Forum will be televised at 8 p.m. and again at 10 p.m. Thursday on UNC-TV.

Participating in the forum are Democratic candidates Walter Dalton, Hampton Dellinger, Patrick Smathers and Dan Besse and Republican candidates Timothy Cook, Greg Dority and James Snyder. The only candidate not participating is Robert Pittenger because of a scheduling conflict. The moderator will be Shannon Vickery, UNC-TV’s executive producer for content.

The News-Record

Dalton is campaigning as a veteran elected official with a checklist of legislative successes for which he gets partial credit: raising teacher pay, providing children’s health care for low-income families and helping recruit new businesses.

His campaign Web site includes much on his accomplishments but less on an agenda for the state’s No. 2 job.

“One of the great things [about campaigning] is looking around and seeing the results of things you’ve done,” Dalton said after a visit to a new health insurance call center in Granville County, near the Virginia line.

Dalton doesn’t highlight issues that appeal to the party’s more liberal base. He was criticized for co-sponsoring legislation to allow a popular vote on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in 2005 and for a 1998 questionnaire in which he did not say that abortion should be permitted to protect the health of the mother, crucial language to supporters of abortion rights.

Dalton has since said the anti-gay marriage legislation was a reflection of representing a conservative district and that his abortion answer was poorly worded and should have included the exception for the health of the mother.

The News & Observer

The ideal race for November for the Lieutenant Governor spot would be Pittenger on the Republican side and Dalton on the Democratic side. They are both good representatives of a broad base of North Carolina. Dalton is far more in touch with the mainstream than this Democratic primary opponents. I hope he will be successful in May.

Three Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor are offering similar policy visions for North Carolina.

Winston-Salem city councilman Dan Besse, Durham attorney Hampton Dellinger and Canton Mayor Pat Smathers participated in a forum Thursday night in Winston-Salem.

The candidates said they support a death penalty moratorium and agree that same-sex couples should be permitted to enter civil unions.

The Fayetteville Observer

Every time one of these three loons opens their mouth it is a raving endorsement for Walter Dalton. Personally, I don’t care about whether we have civil unions or not, but the opinion of making them legal in North Carolina is so far out of the mainstream in this state. And ending the death pending? Yeah, right! These guys should be running for office in Vermont.

Pittenger, a prolific fundraiser for Senate Republicans and conservative causes, said he raised $1.15 million during the second half of 2007, the period that the most recent reports cover.

Among Democratic hopefuls, Winston-Salem city councilman Dan Besse reported raising $29,178, with $4,000 in loans. He had $122,402 in cash to start 2008.

Sen. Walter Dalton of Rutherfordton said he had $904,192 in cash entering 2008 after raising $382,909 in the second half of 2007.

Slightly behind was Hampton Dellinger of Durham, who reported $726,439 on hand after raising $243,536 during the period, including a $100,000 loan from his parents.

Canton Mayor Pat Smathers, who also is seeking the Democratic nomination, reported raising $60,270 in the second half of the year, with $13,500 in loans, and had $5,178 on hand as of Dec. 31.

Greg Dority, the only other announced Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, announced yesterday that he was starting a fundraising committee with a goal of raising $100,000 before the primary.

Winston-Salem Journal

Hampton Dellinger took the side of environmentalists who oppose more coal-fired plants, including a $1.8 billion unit Duke Energy plans to build in Rutherford County, Dalton’s home.

But Dalton said a rapidly growing state demands more power, from traditional as well as renewable sources, and building the new unit “will shut down four dirty plants.”

Canton Mayor Pat Smathers vowed to oppose new nuclear plants, reminding the audience at the UNC Asheville debate of a plan shelved decades ago for a nuclear waste dump in northwest Buncombe County.

Asheville Citizen-Times

So Dellinger doesn’t want coal plants and Smathers says no nukes. So being one of the fastest growing states in the nation, where do Tweedles Dee and Dum expect North Carolinians to get their power from? Are they supposed to bang a couple pieces of flint together for some sparks?

We need solutions, gentlemen, not demogaugery and you’re failing. Dalton was the only one who made an actual point.

RALEIGH — N.C. Sen. Robert Pittenger officially kicked off his campaign for lieutenant governor Monday, the first of two expected candidates from Charlotte this week for the state’s two highest offices.Pittenger, a Republican, pledged to put the bully pulpit of a statewide office behind the budget-cutting proposals he has repeatedly tried to push through the state Senate. Almost since taking office in 2003, he has complained that Democratic leaders ignored his suggestions.

The Charlotte Observer

I definitely favor Senator Pittenger on the GOP side. He has been the most outspoken voice on the illegal immigration problem in North Carolina and is a fiscal hawk when it comes to waste.

On the Democratic side, I am partial to Senator Dalton. He is a moderate and much more inline with the voters of the state than those two hippie crackpots he’s running against in the primary.

Hampton Dellinger, running for the Democratic nomination for N.C. lieutenant governor, urged regulators Monday to reject Duke Energy’s planned expansion of a coal-fired power plant 50 miles west of Charlotte.Dellinger said the expansion could have a severe impact on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and that any new coal-fired facility should be a last resort.

He contrasted his position with that of state Sen. Walter Dalton, D-Rutherford, who is also running for lieutenant governor. Dalton supported Duke’s initial plan to build two coal-fired power plants at the Cliffside site, and Dalton’s campaign released a statement standing by that decision.

“The new plant at Cliffside will be much more efficient and will burn cleaner coal,” thereby reducing certain types of emissions, Dalton said.

Charlotte Observer

I’m not real crazy about coal plants either because they are polluters. I don’t know what Dellinger’s alternative ideas are, but the most practical thing to do would be to go nuclear. Nuclear energy is clean and very efficient. France has been on nuclear power all across the country for decades and they have not had an issue dealing with the waste disposal.

Oh, and one other thing. Dellinger’s wife is smoking hot.

During a Monday debate, the two Democratic front runners for the Lt. Governor’s race, State Senator Walter Dalton and Durham lawyer Hampton Dellinger, took shots back and forth concerning several of Dalton’s votes in the State Senate.

Executions and the mentally retarded

Dalton voted in April 2001 against a ban on executing killers who are mentally retarded. Dellinger said he supports the law.Dalton said he opposes executing mentally retarded defendants, but the procedure for determining mental retardation was too loose in the bill passed by the Senate.

I have to say that I would agree with Dalton’s vote in this case. Being that I am a strong advocate for using the death penalty far more than we do, I too would like to see more stringent definitions of who are considered mentally retarded. Look how often the insanity plea is made today, as a good example.

Abortion and exceptions

In a 1998 questionnaire for Project Vote Smart, Dalton said abortion should be legal only during the first trimester or in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother’s life. Dellinger said the law also should allow an exception for the protection of the mother’s health and criticized Dalton for supporting abortion rights after the first trimester “only in the narrowest of circumstances.”

I disagree with both candidates. I think abortion should be illegal with the exception of cases of rape or incest. Dellinger seems doesn’t seem to have a high respect for life.

Color, gender and law

Dalton also said in the questionnaire that state government should always hire the “best qualified person,” indicating he did not support taking race and gender into account in hiring.”That was the whole intent of the civil rights laws if you were living back in 1964,” he said, “that race should not be taken into consideration nor should gender.”

At the same time, Dalton said, diversity of the work force should be considered but not the determining factor.

Dellinger said he supports affirmative action.

Dalton is 100% correct. Affirmative action is nothing more than institutionalized racism and sexism. You can’t say you believe in equality and yet at the same time support certain people getting preference based on their race or gender.

In the air

Dalton was one of only five senators to vote against the “clean smokestacks” bill in 2001, which would have raised electric rates to pay for pollution controls on coal-fired power plants. Dellinger said he supported the bill.

A later compromise avoided passing on the costs to consumers and was the version that became law. Dalton voted for that bill.

The earlier version “put the cleanup of dirty smokestacks on the consumer,” he said.

Again, I agree with Dalton. Passing this bill would do nothing more than put an increased burden on the poor who already struggle to pay their bills.

Dalton is a good candidate and between he and Dellinger, there is no question in my mind that Dalton would make for a better North Carolina.