Primary runoff elections are a Southern institution.

In a 1997 column, veteran N&O political observer Rob Christensen wrote that primary runoffs have been a "political fact of life" in North Carolina since 1915, leading to defeats for Luther Hodges Jr., Frank Porter Graham and Jim Gardner, among others.

At the time, the legislature was considering abolishing them.

Christensen interviewed Charles Bullock, a University of Georgia professor who studied 1,222 primary runoffs between 1970 and 1986. Bullock, the nation's leading expert on primary runoffs, argued they are the least-understood aspect of American elections.

Bullock argued that primary runoffs: 1) Were not created to disenfranchise black voters. 2) Do not necessarily hurt black candidates. 3) Keep Democratic- and Republican-controlled districts competitive. 4) Do not necessarily hurt the eventual nominee. 5) Do not always go to the underdog. 6) Are not chosen by a handful of voters.

After the jump, the full text of the column.

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Eddie Davis is not happy with an anonymous Raleigh blogger.

A recent post on The Raleigh Soup criticized the head of the N.C. Association of Educators for planning to announce his consideration of a run for state superintendent in a black newspaper.

Davis, the post noted, planned to announce in "the Triangle Tribune, an African-American weekly paper with circulation of maybe five," but the paper was scooped by this post on Under the Dome.

In an e-mail to The Soup, Davis wondered why it would be "out of the realm of possibility" for the Tribune to "work hard and break a story."

He also decried the "use of racial labels" and the "hair and skin doctoring" of an accompanying photo.

"If I decide to enter the race for State Superintendent, the early interjection of race and the hint of anti-unionism that RaleighSoup provided in August of 2007 will inspire me," he wrote.

The full text of his letter after the jump.

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