G. Frink's

Although the N.C. Council of Churches does not endorse candidates for public office, it could not silently abide Republican Liddy Dole's defamation of fellow Christian Kay Hagan.

The Council sent Dole a blistering (and well-deserved) reprimand.

The letter was signed by Rev. Sekinah Hamlin, president of the council and an ordained Disciples of Christ minister and by Rev. J. George Reed,
executive director of the council. It said:

We are writing to deplore as strongly as possible your recent thirty-second television advertisement and the extended but similar piece from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, suggesting that your opponent is "godless" and concluding with the words "There is no God," which the viewer could easily believe are being spoken by Sen. Hagan. As you no doubt know, Sen. Hagan is a faithful and active member and leader in the First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro. To say or even to suggest that that outstanding congregation has chosen a lay leader who doesn't believe in God is appalling and should be offensive to churches and church leaders throughout the state. And, as we learned from this morning's News & Observer, other participants at the "godless" fundraiser in question included Sen. John Kerry, whose membership in the Roman Catholic Church is pretty well known, and Ambassador Swanee Hunt, who began her theological studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and graduated from the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, a United Methodist seminary.

The North Carolina Council of Churches does not endorse or oppose candidates for political office, and neither you nor Sen. Hagan should construe this letter as taking a position about the outcome of your race. The Council has, however, called for greater civility in political discourse, and we cannot remain silent when you challenge the beliefs of faithful fellow Christians and suggest that a leader in one of the state's oldest and largest denominations doesn't believe in God.

Amen.

James Dobson's fear mongering letter and false vision were put in their place this week by the editor of Sojourners.

Jim Wallis demanded Dobson apologize for a letter which fails to live up to either Biblical standards or those of decent public discourse. The televangelist's failure, through his Focus on the Family Action organization, to live up to Biblical standards is especially telling. Willis handles it in clear, concise detail:

"Bearing false witness" is exactly what I believe incumbent Republican Sen. Liddy Dole is doing in her "there is no God" attack on Democratic senatorial candidate Kay Hagan.

Last-gasp gutter dives, sometimes resulting in lawsuits with sealed settlements, are a standby of North Carolina politics because those willing to dive deepest win if those besmirched, despite having the facts on their side, are unable to respond effectively.

Below you can see that Hagan responds with appropriate force and dignity -- exactly what Democrat Tony Rand was unable to do when Republican Jim Gardner mounted a similarly sleazy attack during the 1988 race for N.C. lieutenant governor:

North Carolina's oddly structured presidential election ballot was designed to help create a firewall between Republican domination of the top of the ticket and conservative Democrats.

Voters swept away by Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy and its descendants could not be persuaded to simply vote a straight Republican ticket and go home, because the ballot is structured to require a single, separate vote for president/vice president.

After voting for president, voters must pause to consider down-ticket races either as a group, or individually.

In combination with other, more important strategies, it worked.

The full strategy limited the impact of Nixon's 1968 landslide and voters have chosen subsequently to leave the state under substantial Democratic control while voting for Republicans in every presidential election since 1980. Yet the ballot's confusing structure has extracted a continuous price in lost voter participation in presidential elections.

N.C. Board of Elections officials' persistent, careful explanations apparently have been unable to prevent a larger than usual percent of voters from skipping the president/vice president vote.

It has been estimated that perhaps three times as many voters do not have votes recorded for president in this state as in states with less confusing ballots. Specifically, about one percent is expected. Dr. Justin Moore of Duke University as estimated that 3.15% of N.C. voters did not have votes recorded for President in 2000, and 2.57% in 2004.

There is some concern that this year, with a close presidential vote in prospect in North Carolina, the ballot's impact on voter participation in the presidential race could be enough to determine the outcome here.

In particular, that because of the large number of first-time voters, and their support for Democratic nominee Barack Obama, ballot-induced confusion could conceivably deny Obama the state when he would otherwise have won it.

I think that unlikely at this point, but be careful to vote for president/vice president separately, as the ballot requires.

The rumble of grinding electoral rock grew a decibel louder today as presidential electoral forecasts washed North Carolina with pale blue.

CNN headlined the Democratic/Republican ground war, Thursday's CBS/NYTimes Poll showed Obama with a double-digit national lead and statistical analyst Nate Silver wrote of McCain on life support.

Pat Riviere-Seel's volume of poetry entitled "The Serial Killer's Daughter" is now available for pre-order on Main Street Rag's "Coming Soon" page.

The series of poems was inspired by the life and 1984 execution of Velma Barfield.

Velma Barfield murdered at least four people, among them her mother.

No, I really didn't expect the Republicans to affirm my view that McCain is reduced now to attempting to hold back the landslide.

Almost throwing in the towel for McCain, the National Republican Senatorial Committee ad makes a floundering attempt to rescue incumbent Republican Sen. Liddy Dole from winning Democratic challenger Kay Hagan and implicitly concedes an Obama victory:

Really, the ad above seems clear to me.

Not really, the NRSC says.

Okey-dokey.

Really guys, just between us, thanks for the affirmation.

Former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama undercuts at the root the McCain campaign's narrative of doubt, paranoia and prejudice.

Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, the 71-year-old retired general said Obama embodies a needed "generational change" in leadership, praised Obama's steadiness and managerial skill and slammed the McCain campaign's "demagoguery."

Powell specifically debunked:

Twelve years ago in a kinder, gentler era of presidential politics, the late J. Marse Grant argued with some eloquence that "America be spared the mean-spirited name calling between now and Nov. 5."

Grant, who died Friday at the age of 88, was editor emeritus of The Biblical Recorder, North Carolina's state Baptist newspaper. He seemed to be addressing himself primarily to other Southern Baptists, whose leadership he felt had lost its way by making the Southern Baptist Convention a political adjunct to the Republican Party.

Today the general issue of dangerously divisive overstatement is an inescapable national concern -- one well-addressed by Grant's comments.