Blogs

In today's Chapel Hill Herald, Ed Harrison defends his acceptance of $1400 in campaign contributions from his parents by saying:

"Neither my parents nor I are interested in flouting the spirit of the [limit]"

Both Jason Baker and Laurin Easthom made reference to this "spirit" in explaining why they have not accepted such large contributions and, in Jason's case, object to Ed doing so.

Given Harrison's long association with the Sierra Club, one might expect him to know that, in 1995, the Sierra Club along with the Orange County Greens initiated a program of voluntary contribution limits. They asked Chapel Hill and Carrboro candidates that year to accept no more than $100 from any individual or PAC. Since that was a voluntary limit, there were no exceptions such as those provide for under state law. 10 of 18 candidates took the pledge. Several others expressed agreement with it in part.

So yesterday at at 2:09 pm the Daily Tarheel's opinion page editor Chris Coletta posted a blog entry slightly critical of DTH editor Ryan Tuck. Nine hours later, Tuck blogged that Coletta had resigned saying "it boiled down to a difference of philosophy and my goal to operate the smoothest and most efficient sailing ship possible."

Coincidence? Fall out from the Bandes debacle? Anyway I hope it doesn't stop Chris from continuing to participate here on OP.

So the election is just days away and we haven't had a single discussion of campaign financing. There were a few newspaper articles after the previous filing deadline, but I've been unable to glean any kind of consistent information that I could use to compare and contrast the candidates.

I understand there was just another round of reports due, but I haven't seen any coverage of that. So... what do you know, readers? Who's getting how much money and from whom? Anyone want to go up to Hillsborough and do some research?