Three candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor verbally sparred in a gymnasium at New Light Baptist Church in Greensboro on Tuesday. Frontrunner NC Sen. Walter Dalton did not attend, and Durham lawyer Hampton Dellinger attacked him in absentia, seeking to frame the bout as a two-man race. Meanwhile, Winston-Salem Councilman Dan Besse, who would like to knock Dellinger out of the race and force Dalton into a runoff in June, sharply criticized his opponent, with Canton Mayor Pat Smathers sometimes joining the slugfest.
Two Democratic candidates for state treasurer — NC Sen. Janet Cowell and Buncombe County Commissioner David Young — engaged in a polite conversation, while a third, Michael Wiesel, did not show. They expressed broad agreement on their conception of the job.
Carolina Peacemaker Editor Afrique Kilimanjaro and I asked questions at the debate, which was hosted by Concerned Citizens of Northeast Greensboro. The real fireworks in the lieutenant governor’s debate took place when the interrogation was turned over to members of the audience.
Jonathan Peterson, an organizer from Democracy North Carolina based in the Triad, asked the candidates if they would support public financing for all council of state offices and all state legislative offices.
Smathers seized the opportunity to take an oblique jab at Dellinger.
“If you want to know who people are going to represent, you know the old saying from Deep Throat?” he asked. “Follow the money. You know, look at everybody’s campaign finance report. Look at mine. Look at Hampton’s. Look at walter’s. Look at Dan’s. I think what you’re going to see is that I’ve received no [political action committee] money. I’ve received no money from out of state except for a cousin in Florida.”
Besse added, “This campaign would have been radically different if there had been public financing available because in many of the debates of endorsing organizations about who to support there has been either a subtext or an explicit text of who’s got the money. I have been told on the record by some and off the record by others that several of the endorsing organizations went for another candidate when they would have gone for me if I had had $950,000 in my bank account instead of $115,000. That’s a broken system, ladies and gentlemen.”
Before Dellinger took his turn to speak, Smathers reclaimed the microphone.
“There was one organization that told us they were going to make their endorsement on a Thursday. I got their questionnaire faxed to me on a Tuesday. You know what the question was? ‘Pat, how much money do you have?’”
Smathers said he would turn the questionnaire over to Democracy North Carolina after the election, adding, “Now you tell me how realistic the endorsement process is when it’s not about your views, it’s not about what you know, it’s not about what you’ve done. It’s about how much money you’ve got in your bank account.”
Smathers’ disclosure seemed to take the air out of the room, as Dellinger gave his response.
“I would absolutely support [public financing] for council of state offices and for legislative offices,” Dellinger said. “I’ve supported localities doing it, as Cary and Chapel Hill have. And I would support it for this general election. If I’m the nominee for the Democratic Party and we’ve got Representative Pittenger on the Republican side, I would love to campaign where the financial playing field was equal and I will go one on one with my opponent across the state. And I believe I would win that race.
“I’ve also put forward, I think, the boldest campaign finance reform plan out there,” he added. “I have said that if you are a company or an individual that gets a major state contract or benefit, you are done as a financial political player while you are receiving that state economic incentive package. And if you serve on powerful boards or commissions in North Carolina, we will honor your service, but we will prohibit you from donating or fundraising for political candidates.”
The three candidates each took a compassionate tack on gang activity, and stressed community support over punishment.
“We have a serious problem in North Carolina keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals and teenagers,” Dellinger said. “We have loopholes that need to be closed. We have powerful lobbies that need to be stood up to. And I am committed to keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals, those who are dealing with mental illness and teenagers. And that will go a long way to reducing the most serious acts of violence that we see in this state.
“People often want to take a broad brush,” he added. “I know, from having worked in law enforcement that the most effective thing is not a dragnet, curtailing everybody’s rights. It’s when you know when you have people who are not obeying the law and you don’t let them get lost in the system. You stay focused on those folks. You give them a chance, if they deserve it. If not, you keep track of them. But you don’t tar everyone with the idea that just because they live in a certain neighborhood they’re not trying to do the right thing. And I will stand up against racial profiling.”
Smathers said: “Gangs, like so many other things, are resolved by treating the problem and not the symptoms. Gangs are caused by young men and women who don’t have an opportunity, who don’t feel they have a future.”
Besse gave a detailed, three-part answer that called for enhancing communication between government and immigrant communities, improving community reentry programs for ex-felons, and encouraging students to finish high school.
The candidates demonstrated broad agreement that the state’s mental health system needs to be fixed, and offered a range of approaches.
“The current mental health system is a debacle,” Smathers said. “You fix it by going back to the state-funded, local clinics where there is a safety net, a one-stop clinic in the community to address all mental illnesses that may come up. Well funded, well staffed, for all situations. It doesn’t matter if it’s a veteran that’s needing his medication. He can go to that facility. If it’s a single mom who’s having desperation on weekends, she can go to that clinic and get childcare.
“We need to get rid of the stigma involving mental health,” he continued. “People say, ‘I feel bad, I’ve got the flu. I need to go to the doctor.’ And yet someone with a mental illness, they could hurt themselves or they could hurt somebody else, and they ask to go to the doctor. And there’s a stigma attached to that?”
Besse said: “Our mental healthcare system is broken, and it is in desperate need of fundamental reform. What happened is that in 2001 the legislature adopted a well-intended, badly flawed piece of legislation. It was intended to encourage more community-based treatment, but it didn’t fund it and it didn’t oversee it. In my opinion, the governor in 2001 was badly advised to sign that piece of legislation instead of vetoing it. Our state legislative leadership has been asleep at the switch…. We have to have fundamental reform to make sure that there is continuity of care and services in mental healthcare needs. We have to ensure that people are cared for and served for chronic problems and not treated in emergency rooms for their mental health needs.”
Dellinger said: “Blue Cross Blue Shield has done a lot for the state of North Carolina, but the state and the taxpayers have done a lot for Blue Cross. I think Blue Cross and other nonprofits have to do more to assist in the treatment of mental illness. We also have nonprofit facilities — hospitals — that have to do more in terms of making sure that we have acute-care beds available for those dealing with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and other disorders. I want to make sure that not a single one of our state-supported hospitals, including Dix, reduces the number of beds. Dix needs to stay open until we have adequate facilities available for those who need to be in a psychiatric hospital.”
Dellinger shoehorned in his support for compensating women who were involuntarily sterilized by the state between 1933 and 1974, an initiative championed by members of the NC Legislative Black Caucus.
“As lieutenant governor, I’ll put forward a set of budget priorities,” he said. “At the top will be paying the victims of a sterilization program that took place in North Carolina. We’ve got thousands of those victims. We know who they are. They were promised compensation, and they haven’t received a penny.”
In other arenas, the candidates — all of whom identify themselves as staunch Democrats — clearly distinguished themselves from each other through different positions. Besse took aim at Dellinger.
“One of the candidates in this race has made a big thing about raising the dropout age to eighteen,” Besse said. “I don’t think that’s necessarily a mistake. But I think it’s missing the point to talk about what is in fact a symbolic act of raising the dropout age. What we need to do is improve the educational system so that our children don’t want to [drop out].”
Smathers joined the fight.
“Raising the dropout age from sixteen to eighteen is not going to solve the problem,” he said. “It’s just going to prolong the problem. Ask the teachers.”
Dellinger didn’t duck.
“I have asked the teachers what they thought about raising the dropout age and the teachers I talked to said it’s a good idea,” he said. “I understand that the dropout age in North Carolina is just a symbol, but we are sending the wrong symbol — the wrong message to the young people of this state if we let them think for a minute that they can drop out at the age of sixteen and have any chance, any change of surviving economically in this global economy. I think it is past time that we in North Carolina join the majority of states in raising the dropout age from sixteen to eighteen. The teachers agree with me.”
The rules articulated by moderator Ralph Johnson gave no guidance on whether candidates should would be given the opportunity for rebuttal, and both Besse and Smathers weighed in for a second round.
“There’s been no teachers organization that’s endorsed raising the dropout age,” Smathers said.
After Besse took a second turn, Johnson interjected.
“This is kind of getting out of hand,” he said. “We want to speed things along and make sure everybody gets a chance to ask a question. If you can frame your passion into one minute it would be most appreciated.”
After an audience member asked a new question, Dellinger returned to the student dropout skirmish.
“Pat is a good lawyer, and I did want to be fair and accurate with the facts,” he said. “If you go to the ncae.org website, you will see that NCAE does support — that’s the teachers union — does support raising the dropout age from sixteen to eighteen. The American Federation of Teachers has endorsed me. Pat, I’ll give you a little bedtime reading. I wrote an article about ten years [ago] saying there should be no state-sponsored advertising with the lottery, so my record is longstanding and consistent.”
Cecil Banks, manager of government relations for NC Association for Educators said the following day that the teachers union has supported raising the dropout age from 16 to 18 “for some time.”
The three candidates, who are all white, tried with varying degrees of success to establish their friendship to the state’s African-American population before an audience that was predominantly black.
One audience member asked them to describe their track records on fair and equal housing, jobs, and education, as those issues affect black people. She singled out Smathers, who is the mayor of a town that listed 64 black residents in the 2000 Census, for using the phrase “you folks.”
“That’s just — everybody’s folks,” Smathers replied. “I’m folks. Dan’s folks. I’m from the mountains. We refer to people as friends, folks. That’s it.” He struggled through his answer to the question about his track record with blacks, and finally threw up his hands.
Dellinger saw an opportunity.
“I’ve worked for the NAACP, and I thought there was nothing more important I could do than help that great organization, which does so much for social and economic and political justice in our country, stay a strong and viable organization,” he said.
Dellinger’s campaign materials make note of his role helping the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People solidify its finances and install new leadership in the mid-1990s.
Besse asked, “Hampton, did you work for the NAACP or did you do some after-work phone calling at one point?”
“For two and a half years, I assisted the NAACP in its most difficult moment in its history,” responded, and turned the tables: “Did you assist them in that time?”
Besse got in the last word before Johnson put an end to the bickering.
“Well, I’ve been to both of the Historic Thousands on Jones Street marches,” Besse said. “I just want to make sure we’re clear and complete and direct about what we tell about our records.”
On the matter of the state community college system’s current practice of allowing individual campuses to use their own discretion in admitting the children of undocumented immigrants, Smathers and Dellinger aimed for the middle, while Besse took a strong position in favor of educating all the state’s residents.
“I do favor allowing anybody who graduates from a North Carolina high school to attend community college in our state while paying the same tuition that other students in similar circumstances would pay without saying, ‘Let’s see your green card,’” he said. “That will result in situations where the children of undocumented workers are attending North Carolina community colleges at tuition rates that other students are paying.
“I think it is the compassionate thing to do,” he added. “I think it’s the morally right thing to do, not to punish children for what their parents choose to do. Secondly, I think it is probably a necessary thing to do because if we have large number of young people without access to education, then we are breeding poverty, we are breeding crime, and all of us will suffer as a result.”
Smathers responded, “No, I don’t, okay? I support undocumented workers going to community college if it is a part of a comprehensive immigration plan, okay? One of the problems you have with immigration is it’s piecemeal. If it’s a part of an overall, comprehensive immigration plan, yes, but that’s more a federal government issue.”
Dellinger said, “I support community colleges being able to make that decision at a county level, as they have in the past. And I am looking forward to reviewing the report that [University of North Carolina President] Erskine Bowles and his group of experts is doing.”
Research by Public Policy Polling shows that Dalton leads the pack in the Democratic race for lieutenant governor, according to two independent sources. In a race where many voters remain undecided, none of Dalton’s three opponents are within 15 points of the 40 percent victory needed to win the primary outright, and avoid going into a runoff in June. Whoever wins the Democratic nomination will likely face Republican NC Sen. Robert Pittenger, who leads in recent polling, in the November general election.
In contrast, the two candidates for treasurer present at the debate displayed cool agreement, beginning with the proposition that political advocacy is an appropriate augmentation to the office’s primary responsibility as fiduciary.
“The position of treasurer is currently very broad,” Cowell said. “The core responsibility is as sole fiduciary of the pension fund, and that is going to take up ninety-plus percent of your time. The treasurer also oversees local government finance, chairs the banking commission and sits on several boards, so it is innately a very broad job. And I do believe that corporate governance and some policy issues that impact the whole economic development of the state — and the treasurer’s role of protecting the bond rating — that it is very valid for the treasurer to speak out on policy issues when they’re relevant to the role of the treasurer.”
Young said he agreed.
“The treasurer manages the assets of the state, and he also manages the debt of the state,” he said. “It is important that we use that power of that $77 billion to help North Carolina and make sure our companies in North Carolina do the right thing, take care of our workers, take care of our employees, so it’s important that we use that role to fight for our citizens, and I will do that.”
The candidates also agreed that as chair of the NC Banking Commission, the treasurer should take an active role in regulating mortgage brokers to protect homeowners from foreclosure.
“That’s one of the chief roles of the treasurer,” Young said. “We’ve got to make sure that folks are doing business the right way in North Carolina, and not taking advantage of folks. We just have to be very careful about that.”
Cowell added that the treasurer can work with the NC General Assembly and the US Congress to make sure that banks and mortgage brokers adhere to ethical lending practices.
Marikay Abuzuaiter, a former Greensboro City Council member whose husband operates a convenience store and gas station on East Market Street, asked the candidates for their position on the regulation of small businesses that cash checks for customers.
“I don’t know the specifics of the incidents of what you’re talking about,” Cowell said. “I can say that I think that in the state you have to strike a balance between providing affordable services to people on the ground, but there’s also payday lending [that] can sort of pop up under all sorts of guises.… I hope we can work to make sure we provide that balance of affordable financial services for people who need that, but also make sure that we’re not allowing so much activity that people abuse it and get away with exorbitant fees and charges.”
Young concurred.
“I don’t know the issue about cashing checks or how you’re doing that, but it would seem logical that you should be able cash folks’ checks,” he said. “Obviously, for that reason, we should do it. We don’t want to be charging folks exorbitant fees or penalizing them. There has to be a balance there, I agree.”
Both candidates agreed that the children of undocumented immigrants should be admitted to the state’s community colleges. The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Bill Daughtridge, a state representative from Nash County.
The next debate takes place Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Greensboro Historical Museum. Candidates for NC Senate District 28, Guilford County Commission and Guilford County School Board will answer questions.
ADDENDUM, May 2, 8:48 p.m.
When Pat Smathers, a candidate for lieutenant governor, suggested that voters "follow the money," he was obliquely drawing attention to the fact that he and fellow candidate Dan Besse have been buried in the money race by opponents Walter Dalton and Hampton Dellinger. Here are the totals, as of April 19: Dalton, $1.3 million; Dellinger, $1.0 million; Besse, $146,285; and Smathers, $113,454.
1 comment:
Jordan, I have been searching for info on some of the less publicized primary races on N&R & N&O websites, where they are neglected. Also, their websites are difficult to sort out - too little direct analysis & opinion & too much links-nonsense. Yours is the only helpful source I have found. Thanks.
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