Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:
National Coverage
Democrats make gains in NC amid startling changes
The Associated Press
North Carolina ushered in its first female governor while saying goodbye to its first woman senator, Republican Elizabeth Dole, on Tuesday as the Democrats pushed for a momentous top-of-ticket sweep in a state known for its deep red roots. … "It's no longer important to be a white male to move ahead," said Thad Beyle, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, noting the state was just six years removed from the days of late Sen. Jesse Helms.
UNC Tip Sheet:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/1861/107/
Fans of the 31st President Find Hate for Hoover Greatly Depressing
The Wall Street Journal
Bashing Herbert Hoover is in vogue again, and that upsets Glen Jeansonne. …"Many of the things that are said about Hoover today, particularly that he was an apostle of laissez faire and a tool of Wall Street, are simply untrue," says William Leuchtenburg, professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who recently wrote a Hoover biography after spending most of his career as a New Deal historian.
Health-Care Reform Takes Center Stage
Kiplinger.com
Health-care reform was one of President-elect Barack Obama's major domestic issues throughout the campaign, and his victory means that health care will be a priority. … As a result, "the temptation will be to do something incremental, especially around expanding insurance for children, because the budgetary realities will be so grim," says Jonathan Oberlander, associate professor of health politics and policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Hagan wins Senate seat held by Dole
USA Today
Democrat Kay Hagan defeated incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina's bitterly contested Senate race Tuesday, unseating one of the best known figures in the U.S. Senate. … Ferrel Guillory, an expert on state politics at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said that message hurt Dole as Bush's approval ratings plummeted. In Dole's first Senate race, "she was seen as this North Carolina icon who has gone off to Washington and done well," he said.
Fulfillment of a dream
The Houston Chronicle
Ronald Jackson tossed, turned and watched the hands of his bedside clock drag toward dawn. With the start of voting in the century's hottest presidential contest still hours away, it was all he could do not to catapult out of bed and charge to the polls. … William Ferris, senior associate director of the University of North Carolina's Center for the Study of the American South, said Obama "reached directly into his own generation."
Regional Coverage
First black president traveled unlikely path
The Union-Tribune (San Diego, CA)
The nation's journey from selling African slaves to electing an African-American president is one marked by many detours and dead-ends, bloodshed and brutality. For those who took part in that journey – like San Diego's Rev. George Walker Smith – few dared to even dream that road would someday lead to the White House. … But William Leuchtenburg, an emeritus historian at the University of North Carolina, predicted this election outcome will have “an almost transformational effect on the attitudes of the rest of the world towards the United States.”
Obama wins big, breaks White House color barrier
The Dallas Morning News (Dallas, TX)
Democrat Barack Obama smashed through the presidential color barrier Tuesday with a huge win propelled by economic malaise, war fatigue and an urgent demand for change in Washington. … "A lot of white voters who voted for Bush in 2004 crossed over to Obama because of the economy," said Thad Beyle, a University of North Carolina political scientist who watched his reliably Republican state become a battleground like so many others, among them Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Nevada.
State and Local Coverage
Perdue wins by beating McCrory in his backyard
The Associated Press
North Carolina faces its highest unemployment rate in six years and another state government budget shortfall is on the horizon. … Perdue also probably succeeded in Guilford County because U.S. Senate candidate Kay Hagan, who unseated GOP incumbent Elizabeth Dole, lives in Greensboro, said Thad Beyle, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The diverse slate of Democratic candidates at the top of the ticket — Obama, Perdue and Hagan — also helped. "If you go back in time, it doesn't take you far back to say that's very different," Beyle said.
Hagan pulls an upset
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Incumbent U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole lost her re-election bid Tuesday night to Democratic state Sen. Kay Hagan, done in by Hagan's tireless campaigning, millions of dollars from national Democrats and Barack Obama's strong run in the state. … Even Hagan initially took a pass. She jumped in later and succeeded beyond anyone's predictions, said Ferrel Guillory, director of UNC-Chapel Hill's Program on Public Life. "The combination of Kay Hagan's grit and determination, and the involvement of the Senate committee with its money and creative advertising pulled off a stunning victory."
Damaged absentee ballots to be hand-counted
The Charlotte Observer
Mecklenburg County's three election board members were hand-counting about 400 absentee ballots this evening because of smears, creases and other problems that kept a scanning machine from recording them properly. … “Be careful,” said Ferrel Guillory, who heads the Southern politics program at UNC Chapel Hill. “It's hard to tell. Clearly, what we do know is that we have an extraordinary participation in early voting. Does that mean that overall turnout is going to be up? We don't know. We won't know until it's all over.”
Related Link: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/112/story/298910.html
Obama slightly ahead of McCain in N.C. vote
The Winston-Salem Journal
Sen. Barack Obama was running slightly ahead of Sen. John McCain early this morning in his bid to become the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to win North Carolina. … "The expanded population of ‘new economy' workers, who are not part of the old political construct of the state, were persuadable, and Obama made a big effort to persuade them," said Ferrel Guillory, a political scientist at UNC Chapel Hill.
State Senate: Voters buck Democrats' win trend
The Fayetteville Observer
Democratic state legislators did not enjoy the sweep their national and local counterparts did Tuesday. … To Ferrell Guillory, who founded the Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life at UNC-Chapel Hill, the results Tuesday — the legislature keeping the status quo while the country shifted dramatically — are an illustration that North Carolina is a solidly two-party state.
Parking planned for University Square
The Chapel Hill News
Dick Mann says there's only one thing he can say for sure UNC wants in a redeveloped University Square property downtown. Parking. … The UNC Foundation, a private group that works closely with the university, announced last year it was buying the property housing University Square and Granville Towers for about $46 million. The deal is expected to close by June 2009.
UNC News Release: http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/1286/107/
UNC Rights Center Made Sure Votes Counted
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
North Carolina voters had the UNC Center for Civil Rights on their side yesterday. The center’s senior attorney, Mark Dorosin, oversaw the effort. He said the group, which includes law students, faculty and staff, will report back to the state and county board of elections with recommendations to improve the process.
UNC Media Advisory: http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/1845/107/
UNC, NCSU, Duke unhappy with having to track down copyright ‘pirates’
The Triangle Business Journal
Larry Moneta receives some 1,000 warnings each year that someone on the Duke University campus has copyrighted material available for illegal downloading through the university’s Internet connection. … The university is not liable for the lawsuits unless they are filed against an employee. The RIAA often offers to settle for about $3,000 in the pre-lawsuit letters, Hoit says. William Cameron, assistant vice chancellor for information security at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says his department’s time would be better spent “addressing other security priorities that may put the university’s information security at risk.”
UNC observes Veterans Day
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
More than 100 ROTC midshipmen and cadets will assemble in dress uniforms at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11 for the annual Veterans Day ceremony at UNC Chapel Hill. A color guard representing the Naval/Marine, Air Force and Army ROTC programs will assemble outside Gerrard Hall at 10:40 a.m. before presenting the colors inside the building for the free public ceremony.
UNC Event Brief: http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/1847/107/
UNC brings Kirov Orchestra to campus
The Chapel Hill News
Carolina Performing Arts at UNC will present one of the world's preeminent orchestras next week. The Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre will be making its North Carolina debut at Memorial Hall. Kirov will be under the baton of maestro Valery Gergiev.
UNC News Release: http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/1732/107/
Issues and Trends
Obama's Possible Candidates for Education Secretary
The Chronicle of Higher Education
If history is any guide, Barack Obama will spend several weeks chugging through higher priorities on his presidential to-do list before choosing an education secretary. … James B. Hunt Jr., a former governor of North Carolina who served on the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education, formed by the current education secretary, Margaret Spellings. … He also serves as chairman of the board of the James B. Hunt Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy, a part of the University of North Carolina that seeks to improve public education on a national level.
Related Link: http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/11/04/shortlist
Newspaper will keep digging on airport issue (Opinion)
The Chapel Hill News
Bonnie Hauser was determined to give me one of her "Stop the Airport" signs rattling in the trunk as we drove across southwest Orange County last week. We were looking at sites identified three years ago for a possible county airport. Two top contenders were in White Cross, the community off Highway 54 west of Carrboro.