Jim Neal's village voice

North Carolina's Senate race has been getting a lot of press in New York.

First, there was the New York Post, which inaccurately promoted Jesse Helms to the next world. Now, there's the Village Voice, which skims over the whole primary issue to declare Jim Neal the Democratic candidate against U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole. (Sorry, Kay.)

The interview with gay columnist Michael Musto has drawn attention for this exchange on Dole:

"She's not as polarizing in terms of her stance on social issues," said Neal. "Jesse Helms will be remembered as being a very polarizing, mean person. An old-line party activist in North Carolina named Betty McCain said, 'Helms is so mean that when he was a boy, his mother had to tie a pork chop around his neck so the dogs would come play with him.' " "I thought that was to keep away the Jews," I remarked, saucily. "There aren't any!" replied Neal, laughing.

As Mark Binker points out, there are more than a few Jews in North Carolina, and Neal's characterization of his sexual orientation as essentially uncovered by the news media rings a bit hollow. 

And then there's this line, the sort of gay slang that goes well in Greenwich Village but doesn't play quite the same in the Piedmont:

"Yes, I was a breeder," he says, using the slightly derisive '90s era term for heterosexuals. "When I did meet someone and fell in love with him, call it an epiphany or whatever, but I couldn't live with myself any other way than who I am!"