According to Patrick McHenry (also known as Patrick McDouchebag) who by the way needs to ride a bicycle to shed some pounds. Watch this video

To quote McDouche: No folks I cannot make this stuff up

"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope." -Robert F. Kennedy

Running for Congress as a full time school teacher with a family is not easy. In fact, I count on your support and inspiration more than you know. Because this election for North Carolina's 8th District is so important, and you are so important to me, I thought I'd share one decision I made earlier this week I hope will help bring us to victory in November.

In light of the handwringing from yesterday's narrowing poll numbers, here's a dose of good news.  Both the presidential and Senate races here in North Carolina are still as tight as can be, according to Insider Advantage.

On the presidential side, McCain has 45 percent to Obama's 43 percent.  As has been the case with virtually every presidential poll from here in the past few months, that's about the only good news in this poll for McCain.  On the Senate side, it's a flat-footed tie--40 percent apiece for Liddy Dole and Kay Hagan (with Dole having a mere 0.1 point lead unrounded).

More analysis after the jump ...

Because we need a lift.

lynchburg, virginia

The south is known as a Republican stronghold in the last few years after long Democratic traditions, and Democrats are once again standing up to fight for the South. NC and VA are springing up to be swing-states, and Democrats are fighting all over the South for House and Senate seats.

A detailed non-environmentalist case against pollution in the USA.   This is really good ammo to use against they Cheney types.

I apologize for not being able to do this topic justice but I do want to put the info out in on dKos for general consumption.  

NC Attorney General Roy Cooper was interviewed on the NPR show Charlotte Talks   Cooper lays out the lawsuit against TVA by NC.  

It was two years ago this week, eight years after Robin Hayes first took office, that Hayes told Fox News he'd made no mistakes in Congress.

Host Beth Troutman: "Is there anything from over the past few years that you would have done differently? That you are maybe the least proud of? If anything?"

Rep. Robin Hayes: "Hard, as I can't think of anything honestly, right off hand."

As we reminded him last cycle, the working families of North Carolina's 8th District may have some suggestions.

While DailyKos is a key stronghold in the netroots movement, it must be admitted that using the internet has certain, tangible limits in terms of voter outreach. Many demographics, primarily the higher age groups that vote strongly for McCain, still largely get their news from newspapers.

Given the amount of writing talent available in the blogging community, it seems logical that this would be a good place to find quality letter-writers. Many newspapers in key swing states have circulations in the hundreds of thousands.

Interested in helping the cause? Oodles of info below the fold.

This is my first diary, so bear with me if it sucks.  Some background info so this all makes sense:  I just graduated from high school, and am starting at Tufts University in a few weeks (shit is it already that soon?).  In my glory days in high school, I was el presidente of our Young Dems chapter, and was also de facto commander of our Students for Obama group.  I used organizing techniques I picked up spending more than half of last summer volunteering 35 hours a week at the national headquarters of John Edwards for Prez, so my operation was very facebook-obsessed high schooler friendly.  I organized massive voter registration efforts in the months before the NC primary, and I think all told we registered about 150 people at my school, mostly 17 year olds who would be 18 by November who didn't know they were qualified to vote.  I organized a senior skip half-day when the Arcade Fire played a rally in town, and even a few teachers showed up.  I like to think that I did my part in helping deliver NC for Obama.   But this is all past, and now I lead you to the real meat of first ever diary, after the jump!

We've decided to add Kay Hagan to Two for Tuesdays

Today is the 73rd anniversary of this solemn promise made to our seniors on August 14, 1935:

Presidential Statement of FDR signing THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT

Today a hope of many years' standing is in large part fulfilled. The civilization of the past hundred years, with its startling industrial changes, has tended more and more to make life insecure. Young people have come to wonder what would be their lot when they came to old age. The man with a job has wondered how long the job would last.

This social security measure gives at least some protection to thirty millions of our citizens who will reap direct benefits through unemployment compensation, through old-age pensions and through increased services for the protection of children and the prevention of ill health.

After Kos quoted a CQ article that mentioned McCain hasn't opened a single field office in North Carolina yet, I thought, "You've gotta be kidding me."  Well, looks like I read right.

By late July, Obama had 11 campaign offices in the state. McCain, who coasted to a 74 percent win in a primary held two months after he had clinched the Republican nomination, was still (as of midsummer) coordinating his North Carolina campaign out of a regional office in Tallahassee, Fla. (emphasis mine)

So let's get this straight.  You've got a state Shrub won by double-digits in both 2000 and 2004, hasn't had one poll showing a double-digit McCain lead since February--and McCain's running his field operations for this state out of freaking Florida?  You'll have to pardon us North Carolinians while we chuckle.  

SurvyeUSA. 8/9-11. Likely voters. MoE 3.9% (X/XX results)

This has almost tightened to where the race was right after the primary election, when Hagan got within 50-46 of Dole. Dole responded with a massive negative ad barrage, which knocked Hagan down a few points. Now, Hagan is up with her own barrage of ads, and she has taken a huge bite out of Dole's numbers.

The voter breakdown has 19 percent African American turnout. I've previously criticized polls (inluding our own) for using a voter screen far lower than the 26% African Americans notched per exit polls in 2004.

However, it turns out that those exit poll numbers were widely off. The pollsters at PPP, who are based in NC, explain the problem:

I've been using the 26% figure for our NC general election polling but the more I thought about it last night the more the 26% figure just didn't make sense. North Carolina's population is only about 19% black, and it would be pretty unusual for them to be represented at 26% in a general election.

So I e-mailed Gary Bartlett, the director of the extremely well run North Carolina Board of Elections, this morning and asked him for the demographic data on the 2004 electorate in North Carolina. It turns out the actual black electorate in the state that year was a little under 19%.

So the 19 percent SUSA is using is legit.

That said, I don't think there's any doubt that African American turnout this year will far exceed what we saw in 2004. I don't mind that pollsters use conservative voter screens based on historical results, but we're going to see some dramatic shifts in demographics, and North Carolina will dramatically change -- perhaps more so than any other state -- given its sizeable African American, student, and creative class populations.

On the web: Kay Hagan for Senate

Survey USA just released a new poll which confirms what we already know--North Carolina is in play.

McCain gets 49 percent to Obama's 45 percent ... just barely over the margin of error.  Aside from that, there's virtually no good news for McCain here.  

In an election for President of the United States in North Carolina today, 08/12/08, Republican John McCain defeats Democrat Barack Obama 49% to 45%, according to this latest exclusive WTVD-TV poll conducted by SurveyUSA. Compared to an identical SurveyUSA tracking poll released 12 weeks ago, McCain is down 2, Obama is up 2. McCain had led by 8, now 4. In Raleigh, there is slight movement to Obama. In Southern and Coastal NC, there is slight, offsetting movement to McCain. Among the better educated, there is movement to Obama. Among the less-educated, there is erosion in Obama's support. Blacks continue to vote 10:1 Obama. Whites continue to vote 2:1 McCain. Obama continues to lead 5:4 among the less affluent. McCain continues to lead 5:4 among the more affluent. Among men, McCain led by 20 points four weeks ago, leads by 9 today. Among women, Obama led by 7 points four weeks ago, leads by 2 today. A then-27-point Gender Gap is now 11 points. McCain holds 86% of the GOP base. Obama holds 71% of the Democrat base. Independents can't make up their minds.  

http://www.surveyusa.com/...

On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced the seemingly impossible goal of reaching the moon by the end of the 1960's.

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

Just eight years later, Astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon ultimately fulfilling President Kennedy's challenge. America and the world continue to reap the benefits of President Kennedy's inspiration and dedication to this day.

Just imagine America today had we enjoyed such leadership on energy independence the past eight years, rather than the failed energy policies of Bush, Cheney and my opponent Robin Hayes, the oil industry's #1 Representative in Congress.

Last week I had a huge influx of readers interested in my piece on Eric Cantor. Seems I'm not the only one thinking McCain might just pick Cantor. I think it's a longshot, but possible.

Things are getting very hectic personally. This may be the last newsletter for a few weeks or more. We will be on vacation in California for a couple of weeks and I will have Grand Jury duty after that. Plus work is exploding for me and Joy's dissertation is overdue. Even politically, I will need to put some extra effort into my friend, Devin Cohen's primary election September 9th. But this newsletter I cover some pretty critical stuff.

This is the third in a series of diaries laying out the raw voter registration numbers for a number of states.  Unlike the previous diaries, I will try in this one to make the reading of the raw numbers more simple (and hopefully more readable) and more informative by focusing a diary a day on a particular state and then provide some brief comments regarding those numbers for that state.  In that same vein I will try to provide more of a long term history of the voter registration numbers for each of the states, both over the past year and just as importantly in comparison to the final numbers from the 2004 election with accompanying raw vote totals from the election results in those states that year.  Before going into the numbers I'd like to point out to anyone who has the time to read an interesting story the New York Times had on voter registration and its trend for the past four years.

That having been said onto the numbers for today's state North Carolina.