Democratic debate in NC 6

I had the honor of asking questions with my colleague, Robert Boyer of the Burlington Times-News, at the third debate between the primary candidates in North Carolina's congressional District 6 contest in Burlington on April 11.

It's shaking out to be an interesting contest, with the candidates fleshing out differences of tone and nuance, and sometimes staking out different positions on the issues. Still, in what is the most Republican leaning congressional district in the state, it's hard to imagine any of these candidates mounting a credible challenge to the congenial Republican incumbent, Rep. Howard Coble.

Boyer and I tried to nail them down on some specifics, and we were pretty satisfied with their responses. For the record, all three candidates — Teresa Sue Bratton, Johnny J. Carter and Jay Ovittore — say they would vote to cut off funding for the war in Iraq, and Carter and Ovittore oppose granting immunity to companies that cooperate with illegal warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. Bratton said, "I would not want to give them immunity unless somebody high in the Democratic Party, big, said this was warranted."

All three candidates expressed a distaste for belligerent posturing against Iran, with Carter taking the most emphatic stance: "I would not attack Iran under any circumstances."

Bratton and Ovittore said invading Afghanistan in 2001, in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was the right thing to do, while Carter said that "the intelligence to stop 9-11 was there."

Ovittore concurred.

"We knew it was going to happen," he said. "The intelligence was there, but we dropped the ball because we had an inept and incompetent president."

Taking a cue from Sen. John McCain's widely publicized confusion about the respective roles of the Sunni and Shi'a sects of Islam, an audience member submitted a question about the difference between the two and which comprises the majority in Iraq. None of the three candidates were able to answer the question. For the record, it's the Shi'a Muslims who comprise the majority.

Ovittore attempted to demonstrate his understanding of the nuances in Middle Eastern politics, culture and religion. "The Lebanese people aren't Muslim in a majority," he said. "There's a large number of Christians."

In fact, the CIA World Factbook's entry for Lebanon states that the country is 59.7 percent Muslim, including members of the Shi'a, Sunni, Druze, Isma'ilite, Alawite and Nusrayri sects, although Maronite Christians make up a sizeable enough group that by formal agreement they are assured control of the presidency."

The young Ovittore and the homespun Carter took some jabs at each other, but their differences are as much a matter of style as substance.

"I would like to correct Mr. Carter," Ovittore said at one point. "It's not 'these people.' It's 'the people of Iraq.'"

In his rebuttal, Carter feigned ignorance of Ovittore's distinction and repeated the phrase "these people."

Ovittore called the Quran "a good read."

Carter riposted, "If you'll go to my website, I have passages of the Quran quoted, and you'll see that Islam is a violent religion."

A variance on what stance the United States should take with Venezuela's populist-leftist president, Hugo Chavez, also emerged.

"He has not done anything illegal," Bratton said. "He has sent money to Boston."

"For some countries, democracy might not be the best thing," Ovittore said. "It might not matter that much to them. For Chavez, it doesn't seem that it does."

Carter responded: "As far as the Latin American countries go, it should be diplomacy first, and if any of these countries make a move we should hit them with everything we've got. None of those countries are sophisticated enough to pose a threat to us."