CHARLOTTE, NC- It’s been one week since mid term elections wrapped up, but where does North Carolina stand now. Is the state red, blue or somewhere in the middle? Political Contributor Mary Curtis says even though the state voted Republican, it’s not necessarily red. Recent races have shown small margins of victory, pointing to problems like voter turnout. For Democrats to be successful in the future, she says the party needs to work on getting more voters to the polls, have a good slate of candidates and sell their message.
Mia Love is black, Mormon, Republican and blowing people’s minds
Mia Love is already getting more attention than most of her newly elected congressional colleagues. She is Haitian American, a woman, daughter of immigrants, Mormon, Republican and from Utah, all things that she seems eager to boast about, except when she isn’t, as those who contrasted her post-election speech with a subsequent CNN interview noted. But her own confusion about when to tout her history-making achievement and when to downplay it is more than matched with the contortions of others who are trying to figure her out.
Nov122014
NC Senate race, less than one week out
CHARLOTTE, NC- Political Contributor Mary Curtis stops by to break down Senator Kay Hagan and House Speaker Thom Tillis’ last push less than one week before the election. She explains why last minute endorsements from celebrites like John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Hillary Clinton are so important and how people really feel about those television ads.
Oct292014
Hillary Clinton — politician and grandmom — plays to Kay Hagan’s base in North Carolina
CHARLOTTE — Was it happy coincidence that Hillary Clinton’s granddaughter is called Charlotte? It certainly helped the former senator, former secretary of state, former first lady and perhaps future presidential candidate get the audience in the Charlotte Convention Center ballroom cheering with the line, “I can’t tell you how much we love the name.” Another grandmother, Kay Hagan, said, “What a name that was picked for her new grand-baby!” It was all to the point in a homey sort of way, framing the message of the day — family, women’s issues and equality and opportunity. During the wait before both took the stage, Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” set a no-nonsense mood.
Oct262014
Breaking Down the Third N.C. Senate Debate
Voters got a chance to hear from all three U.S. Senate candidates in Thursday’s debate in Wilmington. Libertarian Sean Haugh stood alongside major party candidates Thom Tillis and Kay Hagan.
WCCB political contributor Mary C. Curtis is helping us understand the tactics they brought used in the final debate.
Curtis says Haugh is consistent with Libertarian philosophy which is less government involvement.
Oct102014
Minority Voters Sought In North Carolina Senate Race
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Political Contributor Mary C. Curtis has been monitoring the NC senate race and says candidates Thom Tillis and Kay Hagan are looking to attract minority voters. She looks at one of the largest minority voting blocks in the state.
Sep242014
Rep. James Clyburn: ‘The country has topped out to the right’
If anyone can take the long view of history, it’s U.S. Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.). The assistant minority leader of the House has lived it, from his childhood in segregated Sumter, S.C., through the civil rights movement that benefited him, sometimes in unexpected ways — he met wife-to-be Emily in jail after both were arrested for protesting for civil rights — to his election to Congress in 1992.
Clyburn, 74, tells his story in “Blessed Experiences: Genuinely Southern, Proudly Black.” He and Emily recently spent an evening at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture in Charlotte, greeting admirers, posing for photos and adding signatures to personal copies of the book.
At the Gantt Center, he shared his thoughts on the pace of change in America: “The country from its inception is like the pendulum on a clock. It goes back and forward. It tops out to the right and starts back to the left — it tops out to the left and starts back to the right. I can tell you the country has topped out to the right, and the country is moving back to the left.” And remember, he said, it “spends twice as much time in the center.”
Sep052014
From voting battles to coal ash spills, what’s up with North Carolina?
Heading into the 21st century, North Carolina was that model Southern state — tradition meets moderation, in everything from its manners to its politics. So what happened? Depending on whom you ask, the state has either lost its way or is finding it. It’s difficult to get anyone to agree about anything these days.
Jul102014
North Carolina Republicans try — despite themselves — to win minority voters
In North Carolina, Republicans see a prime opportunity for a U.S. Senate win in November. So national and state party leaders, anxious to broaden the base, are again turning to African American voters. The latest effort is a North Carolina Black Advisory Board “to strengthen the party’s ties with diverse communities and expand engagement efforts across the state,” the Republican National Committee said in a statement Thursday.
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said of the 11 board members, “Their knowledge and roots in black communities across the state will be invaluable as we share our message of empowerment and expanding access to the American Dream.”
They have their work cut out for them.
Jun232014
For women of LatinaCon, growth in numbers and influence
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – With many Republicans running away from even a whisper of immigration reform after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s shocking primary loss in Virginia, it’s been pointed out that such a short-term strategy for winning in 2014 might translate into problems with attracting the Hispanic vote in 2016. But that’s not the GOP’s only obstacle as it struggles to win the support of a growing U.S. demographic.
All you had to do was listen to the gasps that greeted an anecdote shared by keynote speaker Deborah Aguiar-Vélez at LatinaCon, a gathering in Charlotte last weekend of more than 300 committed, engaged Hispanic women — professors, entrepreneurs and community activists. Aguiar-Vélez described how she sent out an exuberant Tweet during a recent meeting in Washington of Latino alumni of Project Interchange, the American Jewish Committee-sponsored program that brings leaders and policy makers to Israel.
Sharing experiences with a group that included fellow Interchange alumna Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor led to Aguiar-Vélez’s optimistic tweet, quoting speaker David Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish Council. It read: “Latinos & Jews become stronger with each other presence.”
Political provocateur Ann Coulter saw the tweet and retweeted with a message of her own: “Yes, but one’s always the maid.”
Jun172014
