PAC endorsements: Friends announce, PA and Committee to follow

The N&O and the Herald-Sun have confirmed what's been scuttlebutt in local politico circles of late: that the Friends of Durham, a moderate-to-conservative and often business-oriented political action committee, would support challengers Don Moffitt and Josh Parker in addition to all three incumbents (Becky Heron, Michael Page, and Ellen Reckhow).

Support for incumbents has been a staple of Friends endorsements of late -- after all, a goal for the business community is generally being able to get things done, a need that generally values stability and predictability over politics per se. Moffitt's experience with the City/County Planning Commission and Parker's investment, real estate and government experience likely helped push these two challengers forward in the Friends endorsement.

So, no surprises from the Friends. The really interesting question this season will be, which way with the liberal People's Alliance and the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People lean in their endorsements?

BCR sources suggest that the PA -- which will hold its endorsement meeting tonight at 6:30pm at St. Luke's Episcopal Church on Hillandale Road -- is also likely to maintain an endorsement of all three incumbents running for re-election. The PA discussion to date reportedly hasn't been without some grumbles over whether Becky Heron, a 25-year vet of the commission, ought to have stepped aside after a long, meritorious service.

The real question for the PA comes on the question of which two challengers PA will endorse, should they list a full slate of five candidates. (See these two posts by Barry about some of the mathematical niceties surrounding the May primary and how these could encourage Durham's PACs to focus on a smaller set of endorsements.)

Moffitt again seems very likely to get the fourth nod from the PA. The fifth, and most intriguing, slot remains the source of some significant debate. Frank Hyman, a former City Councilman and long-time PA activist, has reportedly been playing a leading role in Brenda Howerton's campaign and has lobbied for PA support for the candidate, who owns a leadership/organizational development consultancy and serves as a water/soil commissioner in Durham.

Parker is likely to get some support from PA selectors as well, but it's not clear whether there'll be enough support to push Parker beyond Howerton.

One name not being bandied about in any quarter is Doug Wright; the chair of the board at the county's mental health agency the Durham Center, Wright's campaign has failed to catch a wave of public attention to date, and political insiders see him running as a marginal candidate at best. (Free political consulting tip of the day: I don't know if Mr. Wright is a conservative or liberal, but his addition of the word-play "Vote Right" at the top of his signs, while cute, is a just plain dumb idea in left-leaning Durham.)

Of course, the most intriguing endorsement this year will be that of the Durham Committee. We've speculated here that a full-Committee slate could, if well-marketed, provide surprising power to the PAC in a year in which the Clinton/Obama race could draw thousands of new voters to the race and increase turnout in the Committee's home turf (low turnout in which was pivotal in a couple of City Council races last fall.)

Still, two questions hang over this scenario. First, even if the DCABP supports a full-five slate -- which would likely include only Michael Page from among the current incumbents -- there's the issue of the Committee's ability to publicize its slate to voters and to get the word out to the public. Ironically, the large turnout and the arrival of new voters presents its own challenge: the Committee has in recent years had its greatest sway among senior citizens and older voters who remember the Committee's glory days during the civil rights era. Will new voters, particularly twenty- and thirtysomethings, feel any allegiance to the Committee's endorsements?

Secondly -- and relatedly -- it will be interesting to see whether the Committee chooses to endorse a smaller group of candidates, sloughing off marginal candidates Victoria Peterson and Joe Bowser in favor of those candidates with the greatest likelihood of victory. That would include Page and Howerton; Fred Foster Jr. is on the bubble in such a scenario, but still likely to join in the Committee endorsement fun. (Foster is the president of the Durham County NAACP and the treasurer of the county Democratic party -- both well-aligned with Committee chair and likely Democratic superdelegate Lavonia Allison -- but has been a low finisher in past races and lacks governmental experience.)

Though the Committee endorsed the plucky, perennial Peterson in her fall race for Council, she polled less well than other Committee-endorsed candidates. Will the DCABP try to avoid the perception of marginality and choose a selective slate, or go for the attractive, but risky, full-house scenario?

Comments

[hurley]

Lavonia Allison is a superdelegate to the Democratic Party convention?

This is a joke, right?

She spent years making the school superintendent's life miserable for no other reason than that she was white. Does she even show up at school board meetings now that Harris is in charge? Her two stooges were voted off the school board; the Dem party in NC must have better politicians than her to send to the convention.

[Barry]

LaVonia Allison is a member of the State Executive Committee of the Democratic Party but she is not, to my knowledge, a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention. I suspect she will be elected as a pledged delegate to the convention, however, should she decide to seek that role.

http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/superdelegate-list.html

[Bull City Rising]

Barry -- thanks for the correction. My goof.

[Coop]

The P.A. went with the commissioner incumbents plus Don Moffit and Brenda Howerton, Richard Moore for Governor (very interesting), Tracy Cline for D.A.

I feel certain Allison will screw both of those women over with the Committee endorsement though. Younger, capable women of color tend to bring out her hat pins.

Given that Allison did not endorse any Democrats in the City Council race last November and that she ran after voters on election day screaming at them not to vote for the Democratic candidates, I'd have to say that anyone who votes to have her be their delegate to anything involving the Democratic Party is misguided at best.

[Frank Hyman]

Just back from the Durham People's Alliance meeting--we endorsed the slate recommended by the folks who did the candidate interviews: Reckhow, Moffit, Heron, Howerton and Page in that order with Parker and Foster a distant 6th and 7th.

One of the key reasons for Howerton and Page to beat Parker and Foster was the support the latter two gave to raising the regressive sales tax over the property tax or a land transfer tax.

(I think even the average citizen would understand how bad a deal the sales tax is for them if reporters in the MSM would just ask gov. budget staff to calculate what the average working family household would pay if local government wanted to raise say $10million from either of those three revenue sources. They would pay the most from a sales tax increase, a middling amount from a property tax increase and the least from a land transfer tax--unless they were buying and flipping houses for a living. )

Also worth noting, the interview committee was very put off by the number of times that Parker said that "the free market will sort it out."

Frank Hyman

[Coop]

And who, pray tell, are the "folks who did the candidate interviews?" Were they elected by the other P.A. members? Did P.A. members have a chance to say they wanted to be on the committee that interviewed candidates? Or is this something where the same people self-appoint themselves the task year after year? Were their any "womenfolk" on this august panel? And why are the interview done in secret anyway? Why not invite the candidates to appear before all P.A. members?

While we are on the subject, why is it that the political action committee of the P.A. is headed up by Tom Miller and Milo Pyne year after year after year, with a new election for leaders never taking place? Is the PAC of the P.A. a monarchy or something? The P.A. elects new leaders regularly, why is it that its PAC can not do the same?

I find it interesting that an organization annointing itself as an arbitrator of who should lead our democracy follows such undemocratic procedures in electing its own leaders.