Friday Morning at the SBOE

I spent Friday morning down at the State Board of Elections - the last few hours of the filing period. Until about 10:30, there wasn't much going on except idle chit chat with the very gracious Board of Elections workers. After that, in pretty rapid succession, there were a number of surprises during the morning – Wayne filing/Jim Long not filing, Richard Morgan filing for Superintendent of Public Instruction, etc. I was there because I am working with some judges and I wanted to see what was happening in those races. It didn't make the papers, but there was some pretty wild stuff that went on in the appeals court races late in the morning.

A little background: There are six seats up for election on the Court of Appeals. These are "nonpartisan" races, so the party affiliation is not on the ballot. If there are more than two candidates for a seat, there is a primary to boil it down to two.

One of the candidates I am working with, Wake County Judge Kristin Ruth, is running against John Tyson, who is a Republican on the Court of Appeals now. Earlier in the filing period, Tyson was heard to say that if he were targeted for a primary, he would see to it that other Democrats had opposition. He seemed to think that there was a plot to have a second Democratic woman file against him to force a primary, and he indicated that if that were to happen the Rs would put a woman in the race to split the women's vote (presumably hurting Judge Ruth's chances of surviving the primary). Well, there was no plot, but another D candidate did file in that race -- so, there is a primary. On Friday morning, former Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Barrett filed against previously unopposed Court of Appeals Judge Linda Stephens (another candidate I am supporting and working with, and, simply put, one of the greatest people you will ever meet). Shortly thereafter, Judge Tyson was in the parking lot of the Board of Elections talking with two supporters who came with Dan Barrett to file against Judge Stephens.

Also in the conversation was Jan Pueschel, a local Republican who had been openly recruiting Republicans to run against local Democratic judicial candidates. Jan used to be the Wake County Clerk of Court, but she lost to a D in 2006. After the parking lot conversation with Tyson and the Barrett people, Jan went into the Board of Elections and filed for the Tyson seat. Presumably, she is in the race to take votes from Judge Ruth in order to benefit Judge Tyson. Personally, I don't think this is a very smart strategy on Judge Tyson's part, but I am perfectly happy for him to play electoral games while Judge Ruth is traveling around meeting voters.

So, I share all this drama because: 1. it was too bizarre not to document; 2. we talk about a lot of races here, but not usually these important judicial races; and 3. it was too bizarre not to document.