Tillis, Hagan campaign ads take state into new realm (Raleigh News & Observer column) -- This is what a Senate race looks like when money is no object. The North Carolina Senate race is expected to pass the $100 million mark this year, blowing past the old record of $76 million spent in Massachusetts when Democrat Elizabeth Warren defeated Republican incumbent Scott Brown in 2012. But that will come as no surprise to anybody who has turned on their TV lately and seen a steady rat-a-tat-tat of attack ads – some of which actually contain grains of truth. But is anybody paying attention to the TV blitz? And is anybody benefiting beyond the TV station owners and shareholders?
http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/10/25/4256331/christensen-tillis-hagan-campaign.html

N.C. Fights To Take Voting Site Away From Pesky College Kids (Huffington Post) -- Early voting starts today, Thursday in North Carolina, even as the state has pushed to move early voting sites farther away from college campuses. The Republican-dominated North Carolina State Board of Elections, among other efforts, has sought to remove an early voting location from the campus of Appalachian State University, which has about 18,000 students, many of whom lean Democratic. Last week, the board filed a petition asking the state Supreme Court to stay a judge’s ruling in favor of the site. On Wednesday afternoon, not having heard from the high court and with the start of early voting looming, the elections board hastily voted to keep the site on campus. Soon after, the state Supreme Court announced that it was staying the judge’s ruling and sending the case back to the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
http://billmoyers.com/2014/10/23/north-carolina-fights-take-voting-site-away-pesky-college-kids/

EARLY VOTING DAY 1: Early vote in person day 1 (Thurs. 10/23): Total votes cast: 117,758: D 50.9%; R 29.4%; U 19.6%; L 0.1%

As corporate-carpetbagger friendly as the NCGOP has made North Carolina since taking control of the legislature in 2010, they keep surprising. This latest revelation Monday from North Carolina echoes the billion-dollar, Hudson Lights real estate deal thought connected to Gov. Chris Christie's Bridgegate scandal. WCNC-Charlotte has video here.

Tillis’ over-the-counter birth control plan wouldn’t increase access (Carolina Mercury) -- When House Speaker Thom Tillis was asked during last week’s U.S. Senate debate whether or not he agreed with the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision, the Speaker had a neatly packaged response ready. According to the Republican candidate, Hobby Lobby, which said that corporations with religious beliefs can deny employees contraceptive coverage, was not about birth control, but about religious freedom. On the supposedly unrelated topic of birth control, however, Tillis was quick to note that he supports broadening access to contraception
http://www.carolinamercury.com/2014/09/tillis-over-the-counter-birth-control-plan-would-not-increase...

CAMPAIGN 2014
More confusion among GOP leadership on teacher pay after McCrory letter gives yet another ‘average’ increase number (WRAL-TV) -- When Gov. Pat McCrory wrote to welcome teachers back to the classroom, he touted a "substantial" pay raise that amounted to "an average pay increase of 5.5 percent for teachers." That might have been exciting news, except that for more than a month legislative leaders have been touting a 7 percent average pay raise. House Speaker Thom Tillis trumpets that 7 percent figures as "simple math" in a recent campaign ad for his U.S. Senate campaign. For educators like Michelle Pettey, a first-grade teacher at Wake County's Brier Creek Elementary School, that "simple math" doesn't add up; 5.5 percent doesn't equal 7 percent and neither number matches the smaller-than-expected pay bump that showed up in her first paycheck of the year. "No teacher can figure out what happened," said Pettey, a teacher with 16 years in the classroom who said her actual raise worked out to be something like 1.39 percent. Josh Ellis, a spokesman for Gov. McCrory, said the difference between the 5.5 percent number and the 7 percent number is a difference in accounting.
http://www.wral.com/pay-raise-claims-confuse-frustrate-teachers/13961974/

FIVE THINGS TO BE GLAD YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT:

The sour, critical commentaries that are populating the editorial pages this weekend aren’t the only things causing some heartburn around the McCrory camp. In the coming days and weeks there are even bigger concerns looming.. Here are five questions that Gov. Pat McCrory, his brain trust, top DENR officials and his legal/communications team might be, are, or should be, pondering:

News reporters don’t wake up on sunny late spring morning and say to themselves: “We think we’ll toddle on down to the Ethics Commission and check out Ol’ Pat’s latest financial disclosure statement.” Someone, somewhere, made sure the news reporters knew what to look for and where.