Truthful Politics

According to the 2008 Census, Alamance County in North Carolina has a population of 112,816 that are over 18. The Alamance County Election Statistics for the same year lists the number of registered Democrats at 41,421, Republicans 30,530, and 18,252 people are listed as Unaffiliated or Libertarian. That means that 22,613 people of the county population are either non-registered voters or not a citizen of the US. This shows that our political parties need to get active and start recruiting volunteers to go out and get more of their citizens registered to vote.

One way this is accomplished is by getting precincts in the county organized. This is accomplished by having the Precinct Chair, Vice and Secretary more active in their polling area and in organizing volunteers. Alamance County Democrats are having precinct meetings from February 27th through March 12, 2010.

Cathy von Hassel-Davies, Precinct Chair for the North Newlin District of Alamance County held her first precinct meeting on March 1st. She hopes to get more Democrats active in her precinct and to build a strong volunteer base. She was very active in the 2008 primary elections and noticed that her precinct areas voting list was very out-dated. This prompted her to get involved in her local precinct so that she can help clean up the voter database. This will also help volunteers who are giving of their valuable time to not waste it by going to homes that are abandoned, not there, or the occupant has moved.

There are 972 registered democrats in the precinct and there was about a 10% showing for the first precinct meeting of the year. This is a good way of becoming familiar with the people who are running in the local elections and to speak with these local politicians and finding out what their issues are. Jeremy Teetor, running for a two-year term of County Commissioner, Brad Allen running for District 15A District Court Judge, Ron Parrish who will be running for Alamance County Sheriff, James "Hunt" Johnson running for County Clerk were all in attendance. Unfortunately Pat Nadolski could not make it but he sent a representative who spoke for him at the meeting. Each one held our attention at they each spoke for about 10 minutes explaining their agenda and their hopes for the future of Alamance County.

If you want to be part of this mass organization of local Democrats in your area please check out the NC Democratic website and get in touch with one of your local representatives.

Democrats and Republicans are getting together for their annual precinct meetings throughout North Carolina.

Alamance County Democrat precinct meetings will be held between February 27, 2010 and March 12, 2010. Contact your local voter registration office or search for your county precinct. You can also contact your local party headquarters and they should be able to tell you when your precinct meetings will be held.

This is a wonderful way to get involved at the local level and see how grassroots politics work.

Please notice the city change.

A health care town hall meeting will take place from 6:30-8 PM in Greensboro, NC on August 19, 2009 at the Teamster's Union Hall on Sandy Ridge Road.

This meeting is to make your voice heard now that health care reform is closer than it has ever been, as proclaimed on the flier. I do hope this is for us to make our voices heard and not to have a screaming match as has been the norm at most town hall meetings lately.

I want to know what is being done in Washington and Raleigh to make my health care more affordable and to report on what was asked and said at this meeting so I will be attending.

If you are interested in attending, the flier invites everyone to bring a friend and to please RSVP to Heather Welborn - Call: 704 609-5906 or email her at hwelborn@seanc.org.

Look for my follow up post on Friday the 21st.

The five polling locations:

North Newlin District - Eli Whitney Recreation Center 4110 E. Greensboro-Chapel Hill Rd

South Newlin District - Chatham Friends Meeting 4507 Greenhill Rd

North Thompson District - Swepsonville Fire Station 2700 Swepsonville Rd

South Thompson District - Salem United Methodist Church 4924 Salem Church Rd

Patterson District - Sylvan Elementary School 7718 Sylvan Rd

Voting is going smoothly and there have been no long lines since 7:00 this morning. I imagine it is due to people getting out and voting before work. Tonight I expect the craziness to begin.

October 29, 2008 Truthful Politics journalist Cathy von Hassel-Davies went to Raleigh, North Carolina, where she met with fellow blogger Ilina from Dirt and Noise. They headed to a private house located in Raleigh's historical Five Oaks disrict for a meet and greet with Edie Falco, Carmella from The Sopranos. Cathy discovered she had a unique bond with Edie Falco, they both lived in the same small town in upstate NY. Edie Falco was in NC stumping for Obama and making sure that everyone would go out and vote preferably early.

You can click on photo to enlarge.

Afterwards Ilina and Cathy headed downtown for the Obama Rally. We are still gathering, viewing and editing all the videos and pictures, but unfortunately Cathy is an extremely active volunteer with one of the presidential campaigns and these next four days are crazy busy for her.

Cathy overcame her fear of heights and went up on a scissor lift with the lift operator and two other journalists so she can get this amazing picture of the gathering crowd with downtown Raleigh in the background.

I went to an awesome Change We Need Rally where both Senator Biden and Senator Obama came to speak in Greensboro NC. According to Greensboro's Police Department Captain J. E. Wolfe "he estimated about 20,000" attended.¹

I was a press volunteer and was stationed with the local news. I met Dan Bowens of WRAL (a Raleigh station with CBS affliation station) and WFMY (CBS affiliate station out of Greensboro) set up their camera in front of me, so I know both stations were there, among others. These two stations are NC's popular stations for the triad and triangle areas. I tend to watch both as I am located in the middle of Greensboro and Raleigh and I like their format, but not their views all the time so I do go to CNN and MSNBC and also read a lot of news stories on the Internet.

So why SHAME on these two stations?
Let us start with WRAL's 11 PM news on Saturday the 27th of September - Dan Bowens did report on the rally. However, during his news clip he interviewed a representative of the Republican party who gave his views yet he did not interview a Democrat representative. One sided politics?

WFMY did not even mention the rally on their 11 PM news segment. Not one single word?

Unfortunately I did not think to tape another station just the two CBS stations. I'll remember next time.

**I do need to mention that WRAL which is a CBS station also does the news for the local FOX station WRAZ.

Websites searched on Sunday September 28, 2008:

ABC11- WTVD Raleigh - not one single comment on the rally. I went through Local, National and Politics - not one mention of the rally.

ABC45 - WXLV Greensboro - not one single mention in their small news video area.

NBC17 - WNCN Raleigh - found link right away on front page.

NBC - MSNBC Winston-Salem - no mention.

FOX8 - WGHP - Front page

FOX50 - WRAZ - link found under News and then Politics link.

CBS5 - WRAL - link found on front page, scroll all the way down under Local News.

CBS2 - WFMY - link found under News and then Elections 2008.

WXII12 (in partnership with CNN) - found on front page.

¹ WXII 12 NC