newsobserver.com projects - Marty Ryall - Comments

Re: 'Godless' ad was last hope

mikewilder — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:59:02 -0500

Everyone should have known when the voice of the woman in the ad wasn't nasally and grating it wasn't Kay Hagan's voice.

Re: 'Godless' ad was last hope

CitizenOpinionated — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:39:18 -0500

Ryan -

You should do a inquiry as to why Senator Hagan waited a month after President Obama announced the troop surge in Afghanistan by 17,000. This was released on 2/18/2009, although without much press as it might anger his peace loving liberals. Yet Hagan waited until today to do a press release. At least Senator Dole had a website with her stances on the issues. This is what happen when you drink the Kool-Aid and elect a person that rode Obama's coattails in Hagan.

Plus, Hagan knew she should not have gone and taken the money from this Godless organization. Her supporters stated that Hagan believed in the rights of all individuals to worship as they please, yet she never defended any atheist, merely defended her own religion. Anyone that leaves emotions out of the consideration and see the facts surrounding the ad would have seen what a sham the "lawsuit" Hagan filed was...it was a great PR stunt though. I wish she would have gone through with the lawsuit, so the people of North Carolina could have seen her for who she truly she is.

Thus far, Hagan has already given in to the "special interest" of big labor and trial lawyers. This is contrary to her campaign promises of keeping special interest out of the political process. I distinctly remember numerous ads by the Hagan campaign and the DSCC depicted Dole as beholden to special interest. My how the tides have shifted and oh so quickly too. Lilly Ledbetter and Card Check...plus she votes the straight party line and has demonstrated no backbone to stand up to Beltway politics in the name of North Carolina.

I am sure most liberals or people do not agree will quickly counter with tales of how Dole and Bush destroyed this country. Well the Democrats have had Congress since 2007 and now the Presidency and a near super majority status in the Congress , including a Stimulus Package and the lowest Dow Jones numbers since 1997. Congrats...if this is what the change is to entail...we could be in for a long four years...

Has anyone given any thought what might happen if this money does not help?

Re: Dole touts fundraising figures

Senate — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:56:13 -0400

Hagan is running into the same problem McCrory has in the Governor's race - the opposition just has considerably more money.

Re: Dole touts fundraising figures

ryanteaguebeckwith — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:00:25 -0400

The release came at 10:46 a.m. today.

— RTB

Re: Dole announces county coordinators

jeffreyhsykes — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:22:54 -0400

Phil Berger Jr. is also the duly elected District Attorney in Rockingham County, having beaten the incumbent in 2006 and brought much needed prosecutorial zest to our county.

Re: Dole announces county coordinators

ryanteaguebeckwith — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:31:32 -0400

Reposted with full list attached.

— RTB

Re: Dole announces county coordinators

GrayJ — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:37:27 -0400

RTB

Anyway to get the full list or find out the coordinator for my county?

Re: One more caveat to Majority Action ad

scharrison — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:38:29 -0400

Don't get me wrong—I do (generally) welcome a vigorous analysis of campaign ads (especially television), because the profound impact they have on public opinion is one of the main drivers behind the multi-million dollar fundraising required to run a successful campaign.

People should view these things with a healthy amount of distrust, and seek other sources of information to help them decide who to vote for. Maybe if they did, spending a quarter of a million dollars on a television ad wouldn't result in a 5-7 point jump in the polls, and pretty soon Joe Snuffy could afford to run a competitive campaign again.

All that being said, pointing out that this ad is "artfully worded" seems a touch unnecessary and subjective. They're all artfully worded, if you know what I mean. ;)

Re: One more caveat to Majority Action ad

ryanteaguebeckwith — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:33:03 -0400

I'm working on a fact check of the ad that will tie this all together. Then I'm done with it. Thanks for reading!

— RTB

Re: One more caveat to Majority Action ad

scharrison — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:37:11 -0400

This is really getting silly, Ryan.

So...let me get this straight: because the amendment failed by a 2/3 margin, Dole's vote really didn't make a difference (tip the balance), so it shouldn't be used against her? That's some crazy stuff right there.

This is like the fourth blog entry here at Dome dissecting this (radio) ad. I sincerely hope we can expect the same fervor exploring Dole's television ads. Or if you want to stick with "dubious" radio stuff, how about taking a look at all those John Locke Foundation radio stations scattered all over the state?

Re: Dole shakes up campaign

Proctor — Sun, 18 May 2008 11:32:29 -0400

Give Sen. Elizabeth Dole credit for politically minding the homefront in her campaign battles. In 2004, as Erskine Bowles began to break through in some of the larger counties of the Piedmont, Sen. Dole gave even more attention to the immediate region of counties immediately surrounding her home county of Rowan, then proceeded from there to fortify her political bases elsewhere against an appealing and visionary Democratic candidate.

But now in moving Marty Ryall into the campaign manager's position, Elizabeth Dole is "returning to the neighborhood" by relying on someone who managed the gubernatorial campaign of Salisbury's Bill Graham. But Sam Daniels' stint probably was helpful since the entire push from the Democratic Party up north recently has been to run the North Carolina Piedmont from South Carolina in every thing from politics to journalism.

They completely goofed up John Edwards' role as vice presidential candidate in 2004, trying to make him into more of a South Carolina candidate (perhaps since he was born in the Palmetto State) who would come up to visit North Carolina every now and then (but not very often). And while the national Democrats' "journalism coordinators" usually leave the venerable News & Observer to its own devices in press-and-politics matters in the Triangle and Eastern North Carolina, they keep trying to have McClatchy's Columbia, S.C., daily newspaper, The State, command the North Carolina Piedmont, leaving Charlotte writers and journalism folks playing a lot of second fiddle, which can be fun for a while until you miss your turn to call the tune.

So while it's not exactly "fighting fire with fire," as long as the national Democratic Party keeps re-enacting South Carolina's role in starting the Civil War militarily, though with a supposedly more liberal agenda, the Dole Senate campaign is smart to keep its forces drawn in, like infantrymen on a battlefield or linebackers on the defensive side of the scrimmage line in a football game.

Fortunately for North Carolina Democrats, Kay Hagen has every chance of rising up over the national Democratic Party's drive to make North Carolina the stool pigeon of Southern politics. They'll have a tough time trying to reverse the legacy of Kay Hagen's late uncle, Lawton Chiles, as a reform-minded senator and governor in Florida, and they should have even a harder time trying to arrange for political instructions to be delivered to the Guilford County state senator from south of the Carolina line.

The best way for the in-the-know, savoir-faire, politicos-par-excellence of the national Democratic Party to celebrate the modern-day neighborly North and South Carolina partnership would be to try visiting Carowinds, go to a stock car race, or maybe take a tour of Uptown Charlotte, especially since some News & Observer columnists have just about offered to provide free South Carolina driver's licenses for every banker, baker and Panthers playmaker up and down Tryon Street in the Queen City of the Carolinas.

Even the country's greatest academic social climber of them all, Duke University, which says "Yale" more often that "y'all" and is determined to make Southerners who are interested in the history of the Democratic Party get all their "larnin'" from up North, should observe just how one former Duke coed whose smarts are doubted by few has combined her Salisbury upbringing with her Duke education and public service career to help move the N.C. Piedmont down the field and into the end zone for the Republican cause. Duke doesn't even try to convert Southern Republicans academically, but they sure will try to convince Southern Democrats from Chattanooga to Corpus Christi get their political driving lessons from the Poughkeepsie Journal and the Boston Globe. If Harvard and Yale treated Massachusetts, Connecticut and New England the way some Duke savants look upon North Carolina, South Carolina and the South, then David Gergen's U.S. News magazine would probably not give them such high ratings. How Duke gets away with this in the academic ratings game is a real mystery because how can you educate students about America if you simply omit any study of the actual region ofthe country where your university is located?

So as long as the national Democratic Party keeps trying to make North Carolina serve as some kind of a "throwaway state," some vacant field of contented kudzu between Norfolk and Spartanburg, Republican leaders like Elizbeth Dole are going to keep showing them the wisdom and practicality of good old North Carolina tea leaves, as when Asheville's "Our Bob" Reynolds told voters back in the 1930s that unlike "Caviar Cam" Morrison, he'd rather have "good old North Carolina fish eggs."

That old expression from North Carolina history, with the humorous reference to this state as "a vale of humility between two mountains of conceit," is a lot more elegant than the stark politics-and-journalism "command from Columbia" forumla that national Democratic managers have been dishing out for the last few years. Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Kay Hagan can certainly improve her chances for election in November by ditching the national party's I-77 South strategy and sticking to the tried-and-true blacktops and coast-to-mountain highways of the Old North State.

It's going to take all the North Carolina erudition that the Hagan campaign can muster in going up against a wife-and-husband team that is undefeated in all its candidate-and-spouse senatorial campaigns in Kansas and North Carolina. Yes, folks, it'll be every bit as tough as challenging Roy Williams to a Big 12/ACC trivia game.

David McKnight

Re: Dole shakes up campaign

Tyrus — Sat, 17 May 2008 19:54:16 -0400

I don’t know about the North Carolina Governor’s race. But I don’t think you can pin the loss in KY on Davis and Ryalls. Their candidate had been indicted, plead the fifth, and pardoned most of his cabinet in a hiring scandal. It is a miracle that they got through the primary. Governor Fletcher’s own Lt. Governor endorsed his primary opponent and recorded TV spots for her. The state party chairman resigned to raise money for his opponent. The state party Executive Director resigned to manage her campaign. U.S. Senator Bunning endorsed her and ran ads for her. Yes, they lost the general, but overcame all odds to get him there. There is no one in America that could overcome the hand they were dealt in that one.

Re: Dole shakes up campaign

FFC1304 — Sat, 17 May 2008 08:14:34 -0400

Kay Hagan's qualifications are miniscule compared to Mrs. Dole. And Lord knows, we have WAYyyy too many democrackkks 'leading' NC!

Re: Dole shakes up campaign

Cdickson — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:19:14 -0400

If this means Fred "Hollywood" Davis is now the main strategist, Kay Hagan should starting looking for residential real estate near Capitol Hill because Dole is about to have real problems.

The results of the Davis/Ryalls team in the Kentucky Governor's race and the NC Governor's race over the past two years have been atrocious. Ryalls/Davis get rich their candidate spends a ton of money and gets spanked.

Of course J. Sam Daniel doesn't exactly have a great track record either.

Re: Graham parts ways with Fetzer Stephens

teenat53 — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 23:23:11 -0500

At least he came to his senses. Looks like Graham got ripped off.