Tag search result

Democratic nominee for the 13th Congressional District Charles Malone makes it official: He's back in the race. Malone signed up to run in the primary but dropped out because of health concerns. When those concerns resolved, and he was the top vote-getter in the Democratic primary, Malone re-evaluated.

He will face Republican nomineee George Holding, the former U.S. attorney for this part of North Carolina, who received heavy financial backing from a super PAC comprised of his banking family relatives and some friends.

Holding defeated Paul Coble and Bill Randall in the primary. "Following ia time for reflection, prayer and physical healing, I am fit and prepared to make sure that the 45,000 people who voted for me on May 8 did not vote in vain," Malone said in a statement he released.

As his competition endured criticism for questioning President Barack Obama’s birthplace, congressional candidate Scott Keadle of North Carolina took the high road last week and said he hadn’t spent “two seconds of my life thinking” about Obama’s birthplace.

But that’s not what Keadle told a tea party group last month in Rowan County, N.C., during a heated primary race for the Republican nomination for North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District. Keadle, who’s now in a two-man runoff July 17 with former congressional chief of staff Richard Hudson, told the Rowan County Tea Party Patriots in April that he’d demand an investigation into the president’s eligibility, whatever the personal costs.

“If you’ll elect me to Congress, I will absolutely make sure that I don’t shut up until there is an investigation to find out if the president is eligible to be the president,” Keadle told the group, according to a video of the event. “That’s the end of that. And, they can do whatever they want to me.”

Asked about the apparent contradiction, Keadle said Monday that he’d made a mistake, was caught up in the adrenaline of the forum and had failed to qualify his statement. He said he had no intention of pursuing an investigation of Obama’s birthplace unless constituents asked him to.

“I didn’t get it right that day. I didn’t think I got it that bad, but I did,” Keadle said, adding later, “Yes, I do believe he was born in the United States and no, I don’t want to be dragged into the middle of this.”

See a video on the jump below.

A Roll Call piece from Capitol Hill looks at N.C. Congressman Mike McIntyre, who is a renaissance man, of sorts. The paper says the Democrat "might be fast becoming the most interesting man in Congress."

Read here about his black belt prowess, his Shakespeare interest and more. It's a wonder how McIntyre has time for all these pursuits given his tight election battle back home in the 2nd District where he faces state Sen. David Rouzer in November.

George Holding is happy to win the Republican primary for North Carolina's 13th District Congressional seat, but is uncomfortable with talk that he has the November general election contest in the bag.

When people jokingly call him “Congressman Holding,” he responds: “Don’t jinx anything."

The former U.S. Attorney is expected to win in the redrawn district that leans heavily Republican. And it’s still unclear who his Democratic opposition will be. Charles Malone, who won the Democratic nomination, had said he was dropping out of the race due to health problems. But now he’s feeling better and is reconsidering a run.

So, will it really be a slam-dunk for George Holding in the November general election contest for the 13^th Congressional District? Holding won handily last night, and the redrawn district is strongly Republican.

Plus, there was no strong Democratic opponent. The man who got the most votes, Charles Malone, had said he was dropping out of the race due to health problems.

But in the light of the day after, Malone isn’t so sure what’s going to happen. He’s feeling better after a scare involving his heart (not a heart attack) and concern over a family history of heart problems.

George Holding’s campaign is saying this evening that its internal polling shows he is leading Paul Coble by more than 12 points in the GOP primary for the 13^th congressional district.

Word comes in the form of a memo sent to supporters, saying a tracking poll was done last night. It adds that Holding has increased his lead in every region in the district. It says he leads among conservatives by more than 15 points.

Update: The campaign says it was a tracking poll of 600 Republican primary voters in the district, and it had a margin of error of 1 to 4 percent.

Business owners snaked down a dim hallway in the state Industrial Commission’s headquarters Thursday, awaiting stern orders for failing to pay workers hurt on the job. It was an unprecedented day at the Industrial Commission, a little-known state agency that handles disputed workers’ compensation claims when people get hurt on the job. 

Following a News & Observer investigation, commission officials are dusting off opinions rendered years ago and demanding payment. In the coming months, hundreds of employers will be called to hearings to defend themselves and to explain how they will pay. More here.

More headlines:

--Former staffers have testified this week that John Edwards’ extramarital relationship was not such a well-kept secret. More Day 9 trial coverage: Bryan Huffman, 47, funneled checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy Rachel “Bunny” Mellon to political aide Andrew Young.

The super PAC supporting George Holding for Congress is swapping out ads it has been running on television with a more timely one. This one, which will air through election day Tuesday, picks up on the theme of an ad that began airing earlier this week and was paid for by Holding’s campaign committee.

Both ads jump on opponent Paul Coble’s remarks last week that Holding, the former U.S. attorney in Raleigh, went after former Gov. Mike Easley to promote his own political ambitions. The Holding camp saw it as an opportunity to stress Holdings’ tough-on-crime credentials. Both TV ads say Coble’s comment shows he’s worried.

“Desperate men do desperate deeds,” the new ad says.

It is paid for by the American Foundations Committee, a super PAC comprised almost entirely of Holding’s family and friends. By law, it can raise unlimited money to help a candidate but it can’t coordinate with a candidate’s campaign. It can, however, use information that is already in the public sphere, such as Coble’s published remarks.

Republican congressional candidate Bill Randall of Wake Forest takes issue with The N&O’s recent description of his loss in the 2010 general election to U.S. Rep. Brad Miller as being by a “wide margin.”

Randall’s campaign committee issued a statement saying he did better than predicted in a then-strongly Democratic district. That may be true, but it was still a double-digit  loss.

So here it is, as straightforward as possible: Miller received 55.5 percent of the vote and Randall 44.5 percent. That’s an 11 percent difference. Of the 209,202 people who voted, 93,099 cast their ballots for Randall.
 

Wake County Commissioner Paul Coble is quoted in an online publication saying there is "no question" the prosecution of John Edwards is political.

Coble's chief opponent for the 13th congressional district Republican nomination, George Holding, was the U.S. Attorney in Raleigh, remaining in office past his expiration date to oversee the Edwards prosecution.

Coble also referred to Holding's investigation of another prominent Democrat, former Gov. Mike Easley in another campaign finance probe. He said the Easley case was a waste of taxpayer money, noting prosecutors "didn't exactly put him away."