On July 1st Brad Miller will make a decision on whether or not to run for Senate.

There is a good chance that if you are reading this then you know I have been working towards a Brad Miller vs Liddy Dole race since January.  In that time over $3000 has been donated from 65 different people.

In November of 06 we started talking about who could beat Dole.  Then in January we started drafting Brad.

On April 12th Brad announced that he was thinking about running, and on that day a poll was taken that showed Brad was down to Dole 44 to 33.

Since then it has largely been a waiting game for us, but Brad has been very busy.

Public Policy Polling is out with another poll.  This one is huge, with a lot of results for us to talk about.

But, before I dive into details, check out this quick insert from the Indy Weekly of the Triangle:

Our tracking signals indicate that Dole rarely travels to North Carolina, whereas Miller seems to be in perpetual campaign motion there. And Republicans like Dole are out of favor for sticking so close to President Bush, are they not? We thus conclude that Miller would beat Dole like a tympanic skin—a drum, I believe you call it.

Ok, now that I have your attention, to the poll.  This poll (link at bottom) consisted of 800 likely voters pulled from the voter rolls.

First, lets hit on the big and simple numbers.
Bush's approval in North Carolina is 37%, with 59% Disapproval.

This number has been fairly consistent for a while.  If anything this number is worse than it has been in the past.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Brad Miller has stepped up his exploratory effort in recent days as he nears a self-imposed deadline of July 1 to decide whether to take on Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole in 2008.

Last week, Miller and his wife, Esther Hall, met for more than an hour with New York Sen. Charles Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

All of this is from the News and Observer

This was added to in this morning's paper...

It got dark on the porch after the clouds began to cover the moon.  Pretty soon there was just a white glow in the sky covered by gray smoke.  You could see the shadows of the clouds on the hills moving fast across the valley.  Soon the whole sky was full of gray smoke from the south, and it looked like the valley had a gray lid on it.  A rumbling began at the far hill and spread across the sky until it shook the house.  The sky lit up off and on like one of the signs on Main Street, except without color, just like a silver glow.  The kind of cool breeze that always comes before a rain started up, and soon I could hear the first big drops on the porch roof and fell them hitting my knees.  They hit the clay with a steady thump and made the cinders shine.

Those words were penned in 1954, by an author that very few people have ever heard of, in one of the greatest literary tragedies in America.

Please follow me for a brief retelling of his life and his creations.  I hope you enjoy

When we talk about candidates for office, the real key is always the experiences of people who know the candidate.  I present to you the following videos, of real people from Western North Carolina who support John Edwards for President.  

I hope you dont mind the slow load time.

I doubt too many have seen some of the recent stories surrounding Brad Miller.  There has been a huge dustup over at NASA lately, over improper activities.  These activities are of the same type as the actions of Karl Rove and Gonzo.

In the view of the Bush administration, the Government has only one purpose, and that is to serve Bush.

You can find some of the back story on Brad and NASA here.

"Mr. Cobb must leave," said Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. "He has two clients - NASA and the Congress. His office’s work is suspect and Congress doesn’t trust him anymore."

But, now Brad is having to do even more to protect our country, and to protect our Government.

In their new ratings of the top 5 most vulnerable Republican Incumbents, CQ Politics has put Dole at #5.  This is a huge surprise, not because I dont think she is this vulnerable, but rather it is a suprise because the national media seems oblivious to polls done here.

The full article is here.

The article is a pretty simple run down of the situation on the ground, but it includes this praise for my candidate of choice, Brad Miller.

The area Miller now represents could make him a particularly potent statewide candidate. The 13th District — which Miller helped draw as a member of the state legislature when North Carolina gained a House seat after the 2000 census — splits fairly evenly between the parties, with perhaps a slight Democratic lean. It is anchored by urban areas in Greensboro and Raleigh, which are connected by several rural counties along the Virginia border.

My thoughts on Brad's district, and why it makes him strong state wide is available here.

This post was inspired by a diary at BlueNC by Kirk.  Its a good one, please go read it.  Although I initially started this talking about farms, its obvious that so much more is involved.  This is a long and slightly meandering post and only begins to scratch the surface of the crisis that faces our farmers, and rural America.  I hope you enjoy.

When doing research into rural issues earlier this year I had started to take a look at farming in North Carolina.  As a student at NC State, where the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is still one of the university's biggest colleges, and where our Veterinary schools is considered one of the best in the nation, I know how important farms are.

Amongst all the talk of primary challenges to capitulators, I hope that we do not forget those who stood up for our men and women in uniform and refused to vote for this bill.

One of the few Democrats who I am proud of after this week is Brad Miller, who has voted the right way on every Iraq bill from the start.

Tonight comes a new article about a possible senate run by Brad.

Today the United States House voted for Capitulation.  Republicans, joined by too many Democrats, voted for a war without end.  They voted for a blank check.

Not long ago we passed a bill through both the House and Senate fully funding our troops and their safe withdrawal from Iraq.

Then they capitulated.  They gave up.

Friends Dont Let Friends Drive Drunk

Congress took the keys for this war from the President.  Now they have given them back.

In a short entry today, WaPo's The Fixreports that John Edwards will be airing ads in Eugene Oregon.

Which raises the big question of, Why?

"We don't want our opponents to know why we are going up in Oregon," said Edwards consultant Joe Trippi.

The ad is expected to be a local version of the popular, "We the People" ads.

This post just had more and more to report on.  Sorry for the multiple topics.

As many of you know we have been pushing for a top tier challenger to Elizabeth Dole for US Senate.  Well, it has been a busy week.

Wednesday there was a story on the News & Observer's blog about our website.

Then yesterday we had two big boosts.  The first came, oddly, in the form of a poll about a different potential challenger to Dole.  That poll showed a surprising result, with a generic Democrat leading a generic Republican in the Presidential race in North Carolina 47 to 42.

The second came when I emailed this guy you might have heard of that I worked for for a few weeks in the fall last year.

On national maps North Carolina is often colored red.  We havent voted for a Democrat for the White House since Carter in 1976.  But that might be changing.

In a new poll by Public Policy Polling, when asked who they would vote for in the 2008 Presidential election, 42 percent of voters said a Republican.  But, in a huge surprise, 47 percent of voters said a Democrat.

PPP has been doing a lot of tracking polls lately, and I have a large amount of respect for them and their sister company, On Point Polling.  This poll was done with 606 voters.  The way PPP does their sampling, these were people who will be voting in 2008.

In January we started a movement to convince Brad Miller to run against Elizabeth Dole for US Senate.

Since then the movement has grown larger and larger.  We have raisedalmost 2000 dollars for Rep. Miller, an amount that includes over 50 individual donations.

More importantly, Brad's name has been thrown around the pundit circles, and he has let the newspapers know that he is considering a run.

In the past few weeks there have been new articles talking about the possibility of Brad running.  These followed on the heels of the initial articles from the Raleigh News and Observer and the Charlotte Observer, that included this choice quote from Brad:

"I don't think it will be an easy race for anybody," Miller said. "I think a Democrat can win that race. I think the advantage I'd have -- and any Democrat would have -- is I will never have to be briefed on which state I represent in the Senate."

Under North Carolina state law it is currently illegal for workers to engage in collective bargaining.

This law was given a legal challenge in late 2005, under a suit by the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America.  Local UE 150 filed a suit with the International Labor Organization stating that North Carolina state statute 95-98 violated international law.

The ILO is an agency of the United Nations, and its history can be found here.

The ILO is the global body responsible for drawing up and overseeing international labour standards. Working with its 178 Member States, the ILO seeks to ensure that labour standards are respected in practice as well as principle.

This is not a diary about Health Care.  Dole is proud that she doenst get that issue.

One of the biggest feathers in Elizabeth Dole's cap is the time she spent as head of the Red Cross.

From 91 to 99, Elizabeth Dole served as the President of the Red Cross.  She resigned from her job as George Bush's Labor Secretary in 1991 to take the job, and left in January of 1999 to try and become President of the US.

Elizabeth Dole was seen in 2002 as that kindly southern belle that you could trust no matter what.

She used this image to stroll to the Republican nomination to replace Jesse Helms, and beat Erskine Bowles pretty handily.

However, there was a pretty big problem with this image.  It just isnt true.  In fact, I would say that if asked to give a definition of 'trust.' Elizabeth Dole would be hard pressed to say anything other than,

It's an important issue. There are many other important issues. But I do feel that's for another day

No, this isnt just another diary calling Elizabeth Dole a Republican.

Last week there was a big conference in Raleigh, hosted by a "Non Partisan"group.  The big talk of the weekend was from all the conservatives who want to get back to their roots.  Even such luminaries of the conservative movement as Grover "Bathtub" Norquist were there.

In a rare appearance in the state of North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole showed up.