pat smathers

As many of you who I’ve had the chance to meet over the last year know, my campaign for lieutenant governor took me to every corner of the state. Making good friends across North Carolina was one of the most rewarding aspects of my run. Fortunately, those friendships didn’t end on Primary Day.

I’ve stayed in close contact with my fellow “down ballot” Democrats, including Ronnie Ansley, who’s running for Commissioner of Agriculture. Ronnie recently visited us at our home on Mama’s Mountain.

I've just said this in an email, and I want to say it directly to all my BlueNC friends:

THANK YOU to everyone who supported my run for the office of North Carolina's Lieutenant Governor!

23, 17, 9, 5

Those are the numbers in the newest (only) public poll released on the Lt. Governor's race. The big number, though is 46 - that's the number of undecided voters in that race. The MoE is 5.

Walter Dalton has the backing of the entire Democratic State Senate, 53 Sheriffs, and all the money industry can throw at him. He's been on the air for months with the same ad repeating his name over and over and claiming to have saved the world from destruction and done everything but deliver babies, and he can't get over 23.

A progressive is going to win this election, and it's going to be Hampton Dellinger.

I received an email from Doug Massengill, President of NCFCD (North Carolina Federation of College Democrats) asking if BlueNC could once again contribute questions for the debate between the four candidates for Lt. Governor. Here's his message.

The NCFCD is now accepting questions for the Lt. Governor's Debates in Charlotte at UNC Charlotte in the Cone Center. Questions are welcome from all interested persons, including non-college students. Questions should not be addressed to a particular candidate; however you may mention a candidate's position on an issue. The deadline for submitting questions for the April 12th debate in Winston Salem, North Carolina is 12:00pm on April 11th.

This interview/profile was written for my readers over at Pam's House Blend, so a good portion of the information about Dan Besse is familiar to the BlueNC crowd. Dan gave me a solid two hours of his precious time to discuss a full range issues, and in this piece I discuss LGBT rights issues of concern here in NC. He was frank and forthcoming on a topic that many pols are skittish about -- as we've seen in some of the liveblogs.

NC politicians, take a look at how it can be done, after the jump.

--Pam

On Monday, March 3, Pat Smathers will join us at 7:00 p.m. for a live-blog session. Pat has impressed a lot of people along his journey. Don't miss this chance to see what it is about Pat Smathers that has supporters lining up with him.

From his bio:

When devastating hurricane floods struck his hometown in 2004, Mayor Pat Smathers had two options: Rebuild or build better.

Smathers, a problem solving Democrat, chose the latter, partnering with fellow community leaders and state government to strengthen the mountain town his family has called home for eight generations.

My 48th birthday was on Monday, Feb. 25th. I work for a non-profit agency that gets most of its funding from the state, so budgets are tight. One year, we weren't able to give cost of living increases, so the board voted to give our birthdays as a personal holiday. What do you choose to do with a personal holiday? Get a manicure, a massage? Maybe some people would. Not me. I chose to haul my butt out of bed early, get stuck in construction, and fight traffic to get to a Forum on Mental Health so that I could listen to most of the candidates for Governor and Lt.Governor talk about the crisis in North Carolina's Mental Health System. As some of you might have realized by now, I am a political geek, but what you might not know is that I've had two family members struggle with mental illness and fall through cracks - one in NJ, and one in NC. So this was a very important day for me.

Doug Massengill, newly elected President of the NC Federation of College Democrats

Come meet Pat Smathers on Monday, February 25 in Apex.

Pat Smathers is running for Lieutenant Governor, and he's the first candidate to demonstrate an understanding of the depth, breadth, and urgency of our mental health care crisis. In an email sent yesterday in advance of the Mental Health Coalition Forum on Monday in Raleigh, Smathers tells it like it is:

"We must begin an honest conversation about how we can improve mental health care statewide."
[...]
Our mental health system is in crisis. North Carolina is ranked 43rd in the nation for per capita mental health spending. Privatization of the system in 2001, hailed as a solution, has resulted in the closure of hospitals and clinics and ultimately made it harder for many North Carolinians to get help. Our current mental health system is a haphazard array of chronically under-funded programs that have failed all North Carolinians, but most especially our rural residents and veterans."

Mayor Smathers hits the nail on the head. The gang in Raleigh has kicked this can down the road for years, watching as the system grew more and more fragile. With too few exceptions, Raleigh politicians have allowed and encouraged the decline and crisis in our mental health system. Smathers' outsider status couldn't be more welcome than it is in the mental health care crisis arena. Raleigh politicians have cut funding, laughed off the State consultant's recommendations, and counted on public apathy to ignore their failures.