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Editorials
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Saturday, May 10, 2008, 3:00 AM
Get ready to vote in November North Carolina voters are in for an interesting -- and perhaps exciting -- general election campaign. Candidates in several primary races defied the odds Tuesday and won more than 40 percent of the vote in multi-candidate races, thereby avoiding runoffs. In addition to boosting Barack Obama's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, North Carolina voters this week set up state contests that will be decided Nov. 7. On that date, North Carolina will elect a new governor and lieutenant governor, plus Council of State, legislators and local officials. The race for governor will pit a veteran Raleigh insider, Bev Perdue, against Pat McCrory, who is hoping to make the leap from mayor of the state's largest city to the Executive Mansion. Perdue, completing her second term as lieutenant governor, handily defeated State Treasurer Richard Moore. The Moore-Perdue race had turned nasty when Perdue swore off negative advertising, and that decision seems to have given her a final surge. Perdue will match her 20 years of Raleigh experience against McCrory's anti-insider rhetoric. McCrory's primary campaign was remarkable for its brevity. He did not join the Republican gubernatorial race until January. After a couple of stumbles, he found his voice and benefited from the reach of the Charlotte television market, where he collected the bulk of his votes. Loquacious and at ease, McCrory campaigned against a state government he saw as out-of-touch, isolated, self-absorbed and unresponsive. He will no doubt try to hang state government's recent scandals and failures around Perdue's neck. Walter Dalton, another legislative insider, defeated hard-charging Hampton Dellinger and two other candidates for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor. Dalton, a state senator, has helped write state budgets and played on his experience and connections. He will face another state senator, Robert Pittenger, who also emerged from a four-candidate field in the Republican primary with an overwhelming win. U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones faced his toughest challenge since his election to his 3rd District seat. Appealing, smooth-talking, passionate Joe McLaughlin ran a dynamic campaign that hinged upon Republican dissatisfaction with Jones. But that dissatisfaction apparently was not as deep as McLaughlin and other critics thought. Jones faces Craig Weber in November. The campaigns are just beginning.
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